The chief end of revelation

p

VICTOR I AE " UNIVERSITAS

r' /O

Th. R. R.

T 1 I E

CHIEF END OF REVELATION.

ALEXANITER HALMAIN BRUCE, D.D.,

of A/>olf>ffttics and Xetv Testament Exegfsis, Free Church
> ; Author of "" Tin Training of the Twelve" >k Tke Humiliation
of Christ" KU-.

NEW YORK:
A X S O N D . F . RANDOLPH & COMPANY.

9OO BROADWAY, COR 2Oth STREET.

/O 740

EDWARD O. JEKKJNS, PRINTER, 20 NORTH WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK.

PREFACE.

PORTIONS of the contents of this volume were
recently delivered as Lectures at the Presbyterian
College, London. I have taken occasion from the
opportunity thus afforded, to write at greater length,
and with more fulness, than was necessary for the
immediate purpose, on a subject which appears to
me of great importance in its bearing both on Chris
tian Apologetics and on the internal life and future
fortunes of the Church. Two convictions have been
ruling motives in this study. One is, that in many
respects the old lines of apologetic argument no
longer suffice cither to express the thoughts of faith
or to meet successfully the assaults of unbelief. The
other is, that the Church is not likely again to wield
the influence which of right belongs to her as cus
todian of the precious treasure of Christian truth,
unless she show herself possessed of vitality sufficient
to originate a new development in all directions, and
among others in Doctrine ; refusing to accept as her
final position either the agnosticism of modern cult
ure, or blind adherence to traditional dogmatism.
The last chapter of the book refers more particularly
to this latter topic. The views there expressed may

4 PREFACE.

satisfy neither liberals nor conservatives in theology.
I do not deprecate criticism, but I ask the critics to
remember that the apologist's task in these days is a
delicate one. It will be observed that very frequent
reference is made to the author of the well-known
work, " Literature and Dogma." This was due to
one who is the accepted exponent of a wide-spread
tendency of thought on the subject of religion, whose
significance it vitally concerns the Church of the
present to understand.

THE AUTHOR.

GLASGOW, April, iSSi.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

MISCONCEPTIONS.

Classification of Misconceptions . . . . 13

Kabbalism ......... 14

Dogmatism . . . . . . . . . .18

Illuminism 22

Lessing 24

Reimarus 28

W. Rathbone Greg 31

Spinoza 35

Kant and Fichte 42

Matthew Arnold 44

CHAPTER II.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION.

Revelation and the Bible 55

Idea of Revelation 58

A Credible Idea .- . .63

Theories of Redemption 65

The Purpose of Grace in the Bible 73

6 CONTENTS.

The Call of Abraham • . Si

The Trial of Abraham . 89

^Elements of Grace in Abraham's History ... 95

CHAPTER III.

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

A priori Views -99

The Actual Method ....... 99

Congenial to the Idea of Grace 102

Liws of Progress 105

The Principle of Election ....... 108

Ethnic Religions no

Salvation not by Doctrinal Knowledge . . . .116

Moral Defects of Early Stages . . . . . 120

The Agents of Revelation . . . . . .123

The Destruction of the Canaanites . . . . 127

Crude Legislation . .134

Traces of Legal Spirit in Old Testament . . . 136

CHAPTER IV.

THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION.

Old View 149

Its Defects ......... 153

True View . . . 155

Mr. Arnold's Typical Miracle 157

Can Miracles be Removed from Bible without Altering

our Idea of it . . . . . . . .159

Bible View of Miracle 164

Dr. Abbot on Miracles . ...... 169

. 7

Spinoza and Miracles . 170

Ambiguous Character of Miracles 175

Advantage of our Position compared with that of those

who immediately received Revelation . . . . 181

Lcssing on Miracles 183

CHAPTER V.

THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION.

Older View 193

Prophecy Ethical . . . . . . . . 196

Not Hist" tten Beforehand 198

Old and New Schools of Interpreters .... 203

Conditional Element in Prophecy ..... 207

Mr. Arnold's View of Messianic Prophecy . . . 210

Function of Prophecy in Revelation . . . . 21 r

In Reference to Law 212

In Reference to Promise 213

Prophetic Idea of God 215

Prophetic Universalism . . . . • . .219

Prophetic Ideals of the Future 221

Fulfilled in Jesus and Christianity 227

The Method of Proof 227

Christ His Own Witness 232

CHAPTER VI.

THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

The Speculative Presuppositions of Christianity . . 240

Mr. Arnold's Agnosticism 249

Dr. Manscl's Modified Agnosticism 252

The Bible Profitable for Doctrine .... 254

8 CONTENTS.

Use and Abuse of the Bible for Doctrine . . -257

(Qualification for Interpreting the Bible . . . 258

Fundamental Truths of Faith .261

Four Types of Doctrine concerning the Gift of Grace in

the New Testament ...... 265

Doctrines of Faith and Theological Dogmas . . .273
Applications of this Distinction . . . . . 275

Conclusion ......... 277

I ERRATA.

P5ge 51, line i, for raison (Tctreof its own existence, read reason of its own

existence.

" 57, " 6, for that it is, read that is.
" 70, " 7, for the exclusion, read its exclusion.

" 73, u 5, for on those, read of those. Line 6, for of those, read on those.
" 108, " 20, for by the latter, read by them.

MISCONCEPTIONS.

CHAPTER I.
MISCONCEPTIONS.

MY purpose in this book is to endeavour to form
as definite ideas as possible concerning the chief de
sign of revelation, or God's end in making that special
manifestation of Himself above the plane of nature,
whereof the Bible is the literary record — and to bring
the ideas thus formed to bear on past and present con
troversies, as aids to faith and barriers against unbelief.
On first view this may appear a very superfluous task.
Who, it may be asked, does not know the answer to
the question, What do the Scriptures principally
teach ? Vet nothing is more certain than that vague
or erroneous notions have been and still are enter
tained on this subject both by believers and by unbe
lievers ; creating unnecessary perplexities, giving rise
to false inferences and objections, affording opportu
nities of attack, and occasions for defence, which dis
appear when the true state of the case is understood.
The answer of the Westminster Assembly's Shorter
Catechism, to the question above propounded, may
itself be cited as an instance in point. "The Script
ures principally teach," we are told, " what man is to
believe concerning God, and what duty God requires
of man." The statement is too vague and general,
and is thus fitted to become the cause, if it be not it-

1 2 MI SCON CEP TIONS.

self the effect, of misconception. But the crude no
tions I have in view are not mere relics of a bygone
time ; we meet with them in current literature, in such
popular books, e.g., as Mr. Matthew Arnold's " Liter
ature and Dogma," and Mr. W. Rathbone Greg's
"Creed of Christendom." In these books attacks are
made on the faith, which are based on certain assump
tions as to the raison d'etre of revelation, and the only
effectual method of meeting the assault is to form
exact ideas on the subject to which these assumptions
relate. When it is considered how vital the questions
involved in the controversy are, it will at once be seen
how very incumbent on the apologist it is to under
take that task. They relate to such cardinal topics
as the possibility and verifiableness of revelation ; the
function of miracle and prophecy in connection with a
revelation ; the method of revelation, involving advance
from rudeness to perfection along a regular course of
development, the employment of morally defective
agents, and the adoption of the principle of election,
that is, the principle of first bestowing privilege on
the few in order to the eventual communication of
the benefit to the many; and, to specify only one
other point, the doctrinal significance of revelation.
Though the Bible is not directly, or in the first rank,
involved in this discussion (for Revelation must not
be confounded with its literary record, or the term
used as a synonym for the Scriptures — of this more
hereafter), yet it too suffers from misconceptions OH
the fundamental question, What was God's chief end
in making a supernatural manifestation of Himself in
the sphere of human history?

In view of the momentous issues involved, the utility

MI SCON CEP TIONS. , 3

of a careful consideration of the class of topics which
cluster around the question will, I venture to think,
be generally conceded. This conviction will support
me in the endeavour to execute the task which I have
taken in hand, not without diffidence and a grave
sense of responsibility. What I aim at ' is not ency
clopaedic completeness, but to suggest some service
able thoughts on the most pressing matters. To
achieve even this modest piece of work in a slight and
sketchy manner will require six lengthy chapters. I
devote this first introductory one to a statement of
the principal misconceptions which have been or still
are entertained1 on the subject of our study.

These misconceptions, then, fall into two general
classes. First, there arc those which take a theoreti
cal or doctrinaire view of revelation, and next, there
are those which go to the opposite extreme and take
an exclusively practical or ethical view of the same
subject. This classification does not resolve itself into
a distinction between the views of believers and those
of unbelievers respectively ; on the contrary, believers
and unbelievers or freethinkers may be found on the
same side. Especially does this hold good, as we
shall see immediately, in reference to the doctrinaire
class of ideas.

Common to all patrons of theoretical or doctrinaire
conceptions arc these two opinions; that Rrcclation
is to be identified with the Bible, and that the Bible
was given by God to men for the purpose of com
municating doctrinal instruction on certain topics of
importance. This may be said to be the old view
held in common both by believer and by infidel. The
points on which those who adopted this view differed.

1 4 MI SCON CEP TIONS.

had reference to the subjects on which instruction was
supposed to be given, and, as connected with that, the
extent and character of the information vouchsafed.
The sober, intermediate, what we may call the ortho
dox, opinion was that the knowledge communicated
in the Scriptures relates to God and to human duty
and destiny, and that it contains numerous items of
information which could have been obtained from no
other source. From this medium position some di
verged by excess, others by defect. The excess con
sisted in looking on the Bible as a book containing
miscellaneous information, of a more or less curious
character, on all sorts of subjects ; not merely on God,
duty, the future life, and such moral and religious top
ics, but on the secrets of nature, the problems of phi
losophy, the constitution of the heavenly world, etc.
The extreme instance of this unlimited construction
of the term Revelation is to be found in the Jewish
Kabbala, which, by an arbitrary and grotesque system
of interpretation, converted the Old Testament into
a book of science, philosophy, and magic, as well as a
book of moral law and religion. Milder examples of
the Kabbalistic treatment of Scripture (using the epi
thet with reference, not to the method of interpretation,
but to the character of the results obtained) have been
supplied in more recent times by those who have been
of opinion that the sacred Book, though not meant
principally to teach the science of nature, yet contains
latent in its pages important scientific hints, and al
ways expresses itself in reference to natural phe
nomena with scientific accuracy. The conflicts in
which this view has involved believers in Revelation
and science in its onward progress are so familiar to

MISCONCEPTIONS. ,5

all that it is not necessary to speak of them particu
larly. Suffice it to say, that these collisions have
gradually taught faith the necessity of caution in the
claims which she advances in behalf of the Bible, and
led to the general adoption of the position that the
revelation contained in the holy Book relates to dis
tinctively moral and religious truth, that it is not in
tended to make known the secrets of the universe,
and that when these Divine writings have occasion
to speak of natural phenomena they do so, not in sci
entific, but in popular language. The old Kabbal-
istic idea, however, is not yet quite extinct ; it lingers
still, for venerable error dies hard ; one meets with it
now and then in odd corners of literature, and it may
serve the purpose of a fresh illustration of a trite
theme, and suffice as comment on the most obvious
and gross abuse of the Bible, as a supposed repository
of scientific lore, if I briefly allude to the latest in
stance which has come under my observation. I find
it in a book with which I became acquainted during
a late visit to America, entitled " I?ife : its true Gen
esis." * In respect of ability and knowledge the book
is by no means to be despised ; on the contrary, its
author shows himself to be well acquainted with the
most recent scientific investigations, hypotheses, and
discoveries, and discusses these with much acuteness,
vigour, and spirit, which make the volume altogether
enjoyable and exhilarating reading. But the writer
is a dissenter from the views current in scientific cir
cles on the origin of life, as taught by Darwin and

* By Mr. R. W. Wright. Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons,
New York, 1880.

1 6 MISCONCEPTIONS.

others. Dissatisfied with prevalent hypotheses and
theories, he propounds one of his own which he en
deavours to support by an induction of relative facts.
The facts are interesting, and demand explanation on
some theory. They arc such as this, that when a for
est consisting of a particular kind of tree, say pine, is
cut down, it is succeeded by a growth, not of pine, but
of oak, and that again by beech. The author believes
such facts to be inexplicable on any current views of
the origin of life, and he propounds his own theory to
account for them, which is, that in the earth there are
vital germs (not ordinary seeds) of all plants, and that
whenever the necessary conditions come into exist
ence, these germs manifest their presence in the bosom
of the earth by sending forth a crop of vegetation.
The germ differs from the seed in this, among other
respects, in this above all, that a seed is always pre
ceded by a plant, whereas the plant is always preceded
by the vital germ. Now, as to this theory and the
argument in its support, I am not going to call in
question the facfs alleged ; they may be all true for
aught I know to the contrary: neither do I quarrel
with the theory ; it may be as legitimate and as feasi
ble as those it is meant to supplant. I certainly think
neither the facts nor the theory should be treated with
indifference or contempt ; but, rather, carefully con
sidered. The hypothesis is in some respects very
plausible to say the least, as, e.g., when it deals with
the question of plant distribution. The "tramp"
theory of distribution, according to which each plant
had originally one native place on the earth's surface,
whence individuals migrated in course of ages, is beset
with serious difficulties, which the author of the " True

MI SCON CEP TIONS. , 7

Genesis of Life" very acutely exposes. How simple
and how tempting, in presence of these difficulties,
the hypothesis that all the word over, the earth is filled
with vital germs which develop into plants wherever
the requisite conditions of soil, temperature, and the
like prevail. Let the theory, therefore, receive, at the
hands of competent judges, fair and full consideration.
What I wish to point out is, that the author finds in
Scripture support for his theory, on which he seems
to rely more confidently than on all the facts of ob
servation adduced. The Scriptural basis is discovered
in a few Hebrew words in the first chapter of Genesis,
rendered in our English version, " whose seed is in it
self upon the earth," but which we are told ought to
be rendered "whose germinal principle of life, each
in itself after its kind, is upon the earth." That is to
say, we are to understand that the Hebrew word zero.
is used by the sacred writer to express the scientific
conception of a germinal principle existing in the earth
antecedent to all plant life, created there by the energy
of the Divine Spirit, not the popular idea of seed pro
duced first by plants, and from which in turn plants
are made to grow by the fertilizing influence of the
soil. Is this probable ? Even if the theory were es
tablished I should gravely doubt it, and still incline
to hold, that in the text referred to, we are to find no
anticipation of the new theory advanced by Mr.
Wright, but a reference to the familiar fact that plants
spring from seeds deposited in the ground. And on
the other hand, should the theory on examination
turn out a mistake, the authority of the sacred Book
will not be compromised, because a sober exegesis
will adhere to the principle, which painful experience

1 8 MI SCON CEP TIONS.

has taught the Church to respect, that on the phe
nomena of nature Scripture uniformly speaks not in
scientific or philosophic, but in popular language.
This principle may be held fast without prejudice to
the negative scientific merits of the Bible, such as the
invariable accuracy of its descriptive references to
natural phenomena, and the still more important fact
of its steering clear of all false science, especially from
any theological and superstitious views of nature, such
as were current in the ancient world ; a feature which
comes conspicuously out in the Scripture account of
creation, compared, e.g., with the Chaldean Genesis,
a feature, I may add, so remarkable that even free
thinkers have been struck with it, though unwilling
to recognise therein, with believers, the sure trace of
a Divine guidance helping the sacred writer to avoid
Pagan error, and in all his representations to walk in
the light of a pure ethical monotheism.

In comparison with those who would treat the Bible
as if it were a repository of miscellaneous information
on all conceivable subjects, the dogmatist proceeds
rationally who uses it as a theological text-book given
for the express purpose of conveying doctrinal in
struction on religious and moral themes, which it is
his business to draw out into distinct propositions,
and set forth in systematic order. He has the merit,
at least, of recognising that the proper sphere of Bib
lical teaching is to be found in morals and religion.
But even in his conception there is something out of
accordance with the actual fact, and unwholesome in
tendency. In making this statement I am not to be
understood as denying the competency or utility of
systematic theology. I not only admit, but strenu-

MISCONCEP TIONS. , 9

ously maintain, that revelation has a doctrinal signifi
cance ; and I can imagine attempts at exhibiting such
significance in a systematic way, which should keep
the chief end of revelation steadily in view, and make
the whole system of doctrine revolve round it as a
centre, and assign to each individual truth its place of
importance in accordance with the nearness or remote
ness of its relations to the centre. Such attempts, in
deed, have been made, especially in recent times, and
might be referred to if needful. All I mean to say is,
that there arc certain sins which easily beset one who
makes revelation consist in the suggestion by the Di
vine Spirit, to the minds of apostles and prophets,
conceptions of ideas and words concerning the dog
mas of faith and the rules of conduct.* In the first
place, the habit of using the Bible as a quarry of proof-
texts for an elaborate system of doctrine, is apt to
render the mind insensible to all Biblical material that
cannot be utilised in that way. The amount of such
matter is not small. There is much that is beautiful
and valuable in the sacred writings which cannot be
manufactured into dogma, and possesses chiefly lit
erary or devotional interest. It is to this fact Mr-
Arnold points in the title which he has given to his
well-known work on the Bible, " Literature and Dog
ma." Then, even that which can be utilised for dog
matic purposes, is likely, in the hands of the dogmatic
theologian, to lose its living characteristics, and be-

* In these very terms is Revelation described by Hollaz, a Lu
theran divine, who flourished in the I7th century. His words are :
" Spiritus Sanctus Prophetis ct Apostolis conccptus re rum ct vcr-
borum dc dogmatibus ct moribus su^^essit." Quoted by Rothc, in
' Zur Dogmatik," p. 55.

20 MISCONCEPTIONS.

come transformed into a dead thing. The Bible is a
rich wide tract of country, wherein the plants and
flowers of Divine truth grow in endless profusion and
picturesque variety. What we find in theological
systems based on Scripture texts is a Hortus Sicciis,
or collection of dried plants, arranged according to
their specific resemblances for the purposes of science,
but with the life pressed out of them.

Further, the dogmatic mind, as we now conceive of
it, has no notion of progress in revelation. All Script
ure given by inspiration is profitable for doctrine.
All texts or books of Scripture are alike good for
the purpose, without distinction of date. The earliest
books are as available as the latest. It is implied in
the dogmatic conception of revelation, that salvation
depends on the knowledge of certain doctrines. That
being so, the most ancient men of God must be
assumed to have been in possession of the requisite
saving knowledge, and traces of such knowledge may
therefore be looked for even in the oldest parts of
the Bible. The patriarchs needed the sum of saving
knowledge, therefore they had it, therefore it may be
found even in the book of Genesis. How untrue this
idea of the Bible, according to which the first book is
as good as the last, progress, growth, development is
ignored, and Christ is in the Old Testament and in all
its parts not merely as a germ, but as a tree, does
not need to be pointed out. It is now generally under
stood that even in Revelation the law of progress by
development obtains, and it is owing to its full recog
nition of this truth that the modern science of Bibli
cal, as distinct from dogmatic theology, has become
the fruitful study that it is.

MI SCON CEP TIONS.

21

Another vice of the dogmatic spirit remains to be
mentioned, viz., the lack of all sense of proportion,
or of the relative importance of the truths taught in
Scripture. Ever)- proposition capable of being sub
stantiated by clear proof texts, is to be received as
matter of religious faith. God gave the book to teach
men certain doctrines, the number of these being
limited only by the extent to which the process of
manufacturing theological propositions with proof
texts attached can be carried ; and who am I that I
should presume to determine which are fundamental
and which of secondary moment? Under the influ
ence of such notions, a dogmatic system, instead of
being an organism of truth developed out of one great
ruling thought, is apt to degenerate into a mere en
cyclopaedia of theological opinions professing to be
derived from Scripture, in which the least important
dogma receives as much prominence as the most fun
damental ; so that the student, while in the act of
learning many truths, is in danger of losing sight of
the one great truth which sheds its benignant lustre
on the sacred page ; the truth, viz., that in the Script
ures we have the record of the manifestation of a
gracious purpose evolving itself, in the course of
ages, and rinding its eventual fulfilment in Jesus
Christ. In this way it may happen to the dogmatic
student of a completed revelation, to repeat the ex
perience of the Jew in studying the Old Testament.
The Jew searched the Scriptures as one who verily
believed that in them he should find eternal life; but
his search was all but futile, his labour mostly lost,
because he failed to discern God's chief end in mak
ing the revelation of Himself recorded in the Hebrew

2 2 MI SCON CEP TIONS.

writings, imagining that it was 4to be found in the
law-giving on Sinai ; whereby it came to pass that
the law eclipsed, to his eye, the purpose of grace
running all through the long ages of preparation, and
blinded his mind even to its sunlight-glory as it
shone in the face of Christ. The melancholy failure
of the people to whom were given the oracles of God
to appreciate the design of the gift, supplies a most
significant historical illustration of the serious conse
quences such shortcoming may ejitail. Let us not
imagine it is a lesson which does not concern us.

The seventeenth century was the great Protestant
dogmatic epoch, during which the conception of the
Bible just animadverted on was everywhere domi
nant. In the eighteenth century, on the other hand,
we meet on every side a spirit of reaction against
theological dogmatism. The dogma-building spirit
had done its work amidst much controversy, and with
incredible toil it had created vast systems of divinity,
embodied in huge tomes which it would take half a
lifetime to read. And the task, when done, turned
out to be a thankless one. The world seemed weary
of theological controversy, and turned away from the
learned tomes with apathy, almost with loathing.
Deism, Illuminism, Aufkalrung succeeded to scholas
tic orthodoxy, and taught, to willing ears, that the
vast structure of supernatural and unintelligible doc
trines was really of no practical value, seeing the
essence of religion consisted in a few simple truths
which all could understand, and which commended
themselves to every unsophisticated mind. But while
the dogmas were given up, the dogmatic conception
of Revelation was retained. That conception was a

MI SCON CEP TIONS. 2 3

legacy eighteenth-century free-thought inherited from
seventeenth-century' orthodoxy, which shaped its way
of regarding the Bible, and which it even turned into
a weapon of assault against the faith in a Divinely
revealed religion. The deist, not less than the dog
matist, had a doctrinaire idea of revelation. He
could not think of any purpose God could have in
view in giving a revelation, other than to communi
cate instruction. The point on which he differed
from the dogmatist was the nature and amount of the
instruction communicated. Men under the influence
of the eighteenth-century Zeitgeist, whether believers
or unbelievers, were disposed to reduce the truths
which God could be supposed to teach men in a
special revelation to a very small number indeed — to
three in fact, which may be called the Deist ic Trinity.
These three were — that there is a God just and, above
all, beneficent ; that moral obligations are to be
acknowledged and obeyed, or the infinite nature of
duty; and that man is destined to immortality. If
God gave a revelation to man, it must have been to
republish and enforce these fundamental truths of
natural religion ; whatever more was found in any
pretended revelation was cither false or of subordi
nate importance. Here was the opposite extreme to
Kabbalism; diverging from the via media of dog
matic orthodoxy on the side of defect, as far as the
Rabbinical idea of revelation diverged therefrom on
the side of excess. All three agreed that the Bible
was a scholastic book; but the Kabbalist thought
it taught everything, the dogmatist confined its
teaching pretty much to theology, and the deist
was of opinion that it taught next to nothing, at

24 MISCONCEPTIONS.

most only the few elementary truths of natural
religion.

The most genial and friendly representative of the
deistical tendency may be found in Lcssing, the
most cultured and influential apostle of German
Illuminism. By the bent of his spirit, Lessing was
a philosophic sceptic or free-thinker, but he did not
assume an attitude of hostility or unbelief towards
revealed religion. On the contrary, he professed to
believe in Revelation, and set himself to discover its
chief end and contents. He developed his views on
these points in the well-known tract, entitled " The
Education of the Human Race." God's aim in giving
to the race the Bible, he held, was to educate it out
of moral childhood and rudeness into manhood, and
He sought to do this by communicating to men the
knowledge of truths which reason could find out for
itself, but not easily or soon. Education, in general,
gives a man nothing which he could not have from
himself, but it gives it sooner and easier. Even so
revelation gives to man no truths which his reason
would not eventually discover, but it gave and gives
the most important of these truths earlier. The truths
of chief moment which God taught the race in an order
determined by the capacity of the pupil were — the
unity of God, presented first in the form of belief in a
national God, Jehovah; then, finally, in the form of
a pure ethical monotheism learned by Israel from the
wise Persians while in exile ; the sum of duty set forth
in the Decalogue, whose precepts were enforced by a
promise of long life in the land of Canaan ; and,
finally, the doctrine of immortality communicated first
to a select few in Old Testament times, and at length

MISCONCEPTIONS. 2$

made the property of the million by Jesus Christ. In
this process of moral and religious education the Old
Testament served the purpose of a primer, and the
New Testament was the second lesson-book, put into
the child's hands when it had outgrown the first.
Both were good in their place and time, but both are
destined to be superseded when the child reaches
manhood. Then comes in the everlasting gospel of
reason, when men. shall see without aid truths which,
in earlier ages, God beneficently taught men by means
of the sacred school-books; and when they shall have
the law so written in the heart, that they will do the
right without any hope of reward, whether temporal or
eternal, as an inducement ; when, nevertheless, though
no longer needed as a motive to well doing, the faith
in immortality shall be firmly rooted in the spirit.

The theory of Revelation now briefly sketched is
very attractive, and not without some elements of
truth. It supplies a credible motive for Divine
action ; for it is quite conceivable that God should
communicate to men, by special revelation, truths of
the moral reason which, in the course of ages, they
could eventually discover, but not till much later
than they actually become acquainted with them
through Divine aid, in odcr that their higher educa
tion might be thereby accelerated. Then the notion
of education, though not exhausting the idea of reve
lation, does enter into it as an element. When God
entered upon the process of self-manifestation, of
which we have the literary monument in the Script
ures, lie did take in hand the moral and religious
education of mankind. Kven the idea of the lesson-
books being superseded when they have served their

26 MI SCON CEP TIONS.

purpose has a certain germ of truth in it. That idea
is borrowed, we may say, from the Apostle Paul, who
justified the abrogation of the Mosaic law by com
paring it to the system of tutors and governors to
which the heir of an inheritance is subject only till
the time of his majority has arrived. Lessing was
mistaken only in assuming that the time might come
when Christianity itself, as taught in the New Testa
ment, should be superseded by the religion of reason,
even as the Jewish religion was superseded by it ;
whereas, according to the teaching of the New Tes
tament, and in truth, Christianity is the perfect
religion ; God's last, because His full, adequate, abso
lutely true word to men ; which cannot be outgrown
in thought as the world advances in wisdom, any
more than the Son, by whom that last word was
spoken, can be outgrown in moral worth. But it is
important to note the source of his mistake. It lay
in this, that his idea of revelation was exclusively
pedagogic. The Bible consists of two lesson-books,
which the pupil outgrows one after the other, as
pupils outgrow all school-books. He learns his
lessons about the unity of God, the moral law, and
the life to come, and goes his way, and thinks no
more about the primer and the second book. But
suppose that revelation consisted in something much
higher than moral education, even in the manifesta
tion of a redemptive purpose, in the exhibition to our
faith of God as the God of Grace, so supplying not
only knowledge of duty, but power to become sons
of God ; and suppose that in the Bible we have the
record of such a manifestation and exhibition, — could
we then think of outgrowing the holy writings as

M ISC OX CEP 770. VS. 2 J

worn-out school-books ? As well might \vc think
of outgrowing the sun ; for Christ is the Sun of our
souls, because He is the Saviour of our souls, and no
one who recognises in Him the Redeemer will ever
dream of the possibility of His being superseded.
Nor will the book which bears witness to His re
deeming love ever lose its interest, or its value as an
atmosphere through which the rajs of the spiritual
Sun are diffused abroad over the vorld. Only such
as think of Christ as merely a Teacher, and of
Christianity as a system of ideas, ivill imagine that
they can now dispense with both Christ and the New
Testament. Even they are mistaken in their fancy.
They are not so independent as tley think. Some
Christian light may indeed reman in their minds
after they have thrown Christ and the gospel aside ;
it is, however, but as the twilight which remains in
the sky after the sun has gone down, destined soon
to fade into darkness.*

* " If Christianity be the revealed, and ii principle completed,
religion of redemption, and therefore the completion of all relig
ion, an advance of religion beyond Christiaiity, or a perfectibility,
or completion of Christianity itself, is neitler possible nor neces
sary ; therefore attempts of this kind lead away from religion in
order to set in its place philosophy and e*hctic for the benefit of
demigods, who no more, like us commor men, need religion"
(Alex. Schweitzer, " Die Christlichc Glaubtnslehre, vol. iii. p. 5).
This writer, in the same volume, p. 31, s;iys again : "If Chris
tianity were not the religion of redemptim itself, as living piety,
but only the doctrine of the same, we could cherish for Christ
essentially only such a feeling as we entertain towards other great
Church teachers ; viz., thankfulness for injunction given at a cer
tain time, and for the spirit with which it was communicated in
spite of powerful opponents." These views are the more worthy
of note that the author by no means occi^)ies an orthodox stand
point.

2 8 MI SCON CEP TIONS.

If in Lessing we see one who, while a true child
of an unbelieving time, still endeavoured to recon
cile faith in a doctrinal revelation with the prevalent
theological liberalism, we find in another man, whose
name is closely associated with his, an example of
a free-thinker, usiig orthodox conceptions of reve
lation to subvert the orthodox faith in revelation.
I refer to Reimaris of Hamburg, author of an un
published work en.itled " A Defence of the Rational
Worshippers of God," from which Lessing extracted
the pieces which he gave to the world under the
name of " The Wdfenbiittel Fragments." This man,
to whom Lessing, and more recently Strauss, has
given greater prominence than he deserves, claims
our attention chhfly on account of the principles
on which his attick on revealed religion is based.
He commenced his inquiries into the claim of the
Bible to be a Divire revelation, by laying down these
two positions : (i) that if a revelation wa,s to be
made it would be £iven in the form of a system o'f
doctrine expressed in precise terms ; and, (2) that
men of irreproachable lives would be selected to
be the medium of communication. In the preface
of his work, according to Strauss, who took the
pains to prepare and publish a digest of its contents,
he gives an account of the origin of his doubts
concerning the truth of revealed religion. The first
thing that caused !iim to stumble was the fact that
the Bible is not a doctrinal compendium. If God
were to favour mankind with supernatural instruc
tion for their salvation, He would, without doubt,
adopt the most convenient form of an orderly and
clear exposition, ir which all that pertained to a

MISCONCEPTIONS. 29

doctrine of faith, or a system of morals, was brought
together and expressed in a definite manner, and
not scattered here and there, or confusedly mixed,
or left vague and darkly worded. \Yc observe in
this assumption an instructive illustration of the
way in which men's minds may be biassed in
religion by their philosophy. Like most members
of the Illuminist fraternity, Reimarus was a \Volfian
in philosophy, and an admirer of the demonstrative
mathematical method of his master, and hence he
was prejudiced against the Bible, because forsooth
its Divine Author had not adopted the style of a phi
losopher belonging to the Wolfian school, Another
thing which greatly scandalized the doubter, was the
character of the people whom God chose to be the
recipients of revelation, and of the so-called men of
God whom He used as His instruments, or who figure
prominently as worthies in the Scriptures. He could
not conceive God choosing so stiff-necked, ignoble,
and perverse a race to be a peculiar people in prefer
ence to other more teachable and gifted nations; and
in the actions of the Bible characters — the patriarchs,
Moses, Samuel, David, etc. — he found traits which
made it impossible for him to regard them as men
after God's heart, and messengers of His revelation.

It is easy to understand how one coming to the ex
amination of the Bible with such assumptions in his
mind could not fail to find in it many stumbling-blocks.
For in truth the sacred Book is as far as possible from
being a systematic compendium of religious instruc
tion. No book in the world has less the appearance
of bearing that character. It is most interesting, ex
cellent, edifying " literature," but it is not a book of

3 o MISCONCEP TIONS.

" dogma," whatever dogmas may be extracted from
it by legitimate exegesis. So far are the recipients of
revelation from being men whom God is using for con
veying doctrinal instruction of a formal character to
the world, that some of them seem to receive little
teaching themselves, and to give none at all to others.
The patriarchs for example : what do they learn from
God, or what contribution do they make to the com
pendium of religious doctrine? Why the communi
cations made to them refer, as Reimarus observed, to
his amazement, not to abstract topics, such as the
unity of God, or the immortality of the soul, but
rather to such gross worldly matters as children and
lands ; and instead of going about as missionaries
teaching the true religion, their whole concern seems
to be about flocks and herds and wells, and marriages
and offspring. Most perplexing behaviour, truly, on
the part of men who are supposed to be God's agents
in the work of communicating to the world a doctrinal
revelation ! But to infer therefrom that no Divine
revelation has taken place, is somewhat precipitate.
What if the proper inference were that the conception
of revelation, cherished by Reimarus in common with
the orthodox, from whom he received it by tradi
tion, was an altogether mistaken one? What if the
revelation consisted not so much in the communica
tion of a body of truth, as in the intimation of a gra
cious purpose? In that case the prominence given
to such matters as an heir, or a land, which seems so
utterly out of place in a doctrinaire revelation, may
be found not altogether inexplicable. In a similar
way, revision of the idea of revelation might go far to
remove the scandals arising out of the lives of the

M '1 'SCO 'A' 'CEP TIOXS

>

men of revelation. It certainly mist be admitted
that they were far enough from being perfect men.
No need for a microscope to discover faults in most
of them ; no need for such elaborate efforts to convict
many of .them of grievous shortcomings, as Reimarus
makes, till his reader is wearied, not to say disgusted.
The fact stares one in the face. But what then ; does
grievous faultiness disqualify men for being the agents
of Divine revelation? Must God in giving a revela
tion play the Pharisee, and out of a regard to His dig
nity have to do only with perfect characters? Or is
it due to the world that its teachers should be so very
far above the general level in virtirj ? There might
be something to be said for these positions if revela
tion consisted in communicating ide^s of reason, eth
ical precepts, or maxims of wisdom. But what if the
revelation consist in a self-manifestation of God as the
God of grace? Then we shall not .vonder at the Di
vine Being condescending to have intimate relations
with erring mortals, or making known His will for the
world's redemption, by men participating, more or less,
in the world's sin.

The employment of a doctriiairc conception of rev
elation as a weapon of assault igainst faith in a super-
naturally revealed religion is i device not yet anti
quated. We find this same cmception used to assail
the possibility and the verifiaHeness of revelation by
so respectable and influential a writer as the author
of "The Creed of Christendon." In that work Mr.
Greg propounds for discussion the question : Is Chris
tianity a revealed religion ? aid lie thus defines the
position taken up by those wit) answer the question
in the affirmative : "When a Jhristian aftirms Chris-

32 MISCONCEPTIONS.

tianity to be a revealed religion, he intends simply
and without artifice to declare himself that the doc
trines and precepts which Christ taught were, not
the production of His own human mind, either in its
ordinary operations or in its flights of sublimest con
templation, but were directly and supernaturally com
municated to Him from on high. He means this, or
he means nothing definable or distinctive." This
state of the question he afterwards paraphrases thus:
" It remains therefore a simple question for our con
sideration whether the doctrines and precepts taught
by Jesus are so new, so profound, so perfect, so dis
tinctive, so above and beyond parallel, that they could
not have emanated naturally from a clear, simple, un-
soiled, unwarpec, powerful, meditative mind, living
four hundred ye^rs after Socrates and Plato ; brought
up among the pure Essenes ; nourished on the wis
dom of Solomon, the piety of David, the poetry of
Isaiah ; elevated by the knowledge, and illuminated
by the love of the one tiue God." These two extracts
clearly set forth the author's point of view. Revela
tion consists in the supernatural communication of
truth which the human tiind could not attain of itself,
and there is no reason to believe that Jesus could not,
in His position and witi His training, arrive in a nat
ural way at the thoughjs embodied in His recorded
sayings; in other word^, no reason to regard Jesus
otherwise than as one of the world's wise men. But
Mr. Greg goes further tjian this. He not only holds
that as matter of fact (10 supernatural teaching was
necessary to give Jesuj His wisdom, but strives to
prove that supernaturalJteaching in general is impos
sible, or at least unverifiable. This he does by means

MI SCON CEP TIONS. 3 3

of the two following questions : Can the human mind
receive an idea which it could not originate? and how
can a man distinguish between an idea revealed to
him and an idea conceived by him' The questions
are rather loosely put. It is assuned, for instance,
that aji idea and a truth are the same thing. The
author indeed affirms that they arc. " A truth," he
says, " is only an idea, or a combination of ideas, which
approves itself to us." Hut a truth is something more
than a combination of agreeable ideas. An illustration
will best show this. God is one idea, love is another ;
the combination of these two ideas is agreeable to our
hearts ; but that is a very different thing from know
ing it to be true, to be a real objective truth that God
is love, as the Apostle John affirms. And this illus
tration may also help us to understand how we may
be able, without Divine aid, to conceive and even to
combine ideas, and yet may require such aid to regard
the combination as objective tri.th. I do not need Di
vine revelation to give me the idea of God ; as little do
I need such help to give me the idea of love. I can
also, without supernatural succour, combine these two
ideas. I can imagine God being love. To do that is
easy, but, alas, to believe that God is love is not so
easy. After I have conceived such a thing as a pos
sibility, I stand very much in reed of assurance that
my conception is not only a possibility, but a fact.
Suppose now we translate Mr Greg's question into
accurate language, and ask : Can the human mind re
ceive a truth by revelation whict it could not certainly
know to be true otherwise, though it might be able to
conceive of its possibility ? Wly not ? Where is the
difficulty? The puzzle disappears as soon as it is

34 MISCONCEPTIONS.

stated in proper :erms. To convert possibilities, con
ceived but not firmly believed, into certainties, was
one grand design of revelation. And now observe,
with reference to Mr. Greg's second question, how
this is done. Take again the infinitely momentous
truth that God is love. How am I to be assured of
that truth with a measure of assurance far surpassing
that attainable by the light of nature, which confess
edly leaves Divine love, to a large extent, problemat
ical ? How shall I know, e.g., whether love means for
God what it means among men, viz., a spirit which
makes a man willing to sacrifice himself for another,
as Alcestis sacrificed herself for her husband ? I can
conceive such a tiling as possible. I cannot indeed
think of God as love vithout the conception entering
into my mind. But from the conception to the belief
what a distance ! Is it possible that God can or will
sacrifice Himself, or stoop to be a burden-bearer to
His own creatures? How shall I know, save by God
doing the thing, and so showing me that love is the
reality for Him that it is for all the moral heroes who
sacrifice themselves for others? And the doing of it
is the revelation. Christ's death on the cross is the
most important part of His revelation ; far more im
portant than His words of wisdom, precious as these
are. And the radical error of Mr. Greg is, that he
takes account only of the latter, leaving out of view
the revelation whicl Christ made in His life, in His
actions, and, above all, in Hi's passion. It is the old
traditional error of a doctrinaire conception of revela
tion reproduced in oir age, and made the basis of an
ingenious attempt t) demonstrate the impossibility
of revelation, which s seen to be inept so soon as the

MISCONCEPTIONS. 35

subject in debate is rightly defined. That Mr. Greg's
attack would be valid even against revelation as con
ceived by himself, I am not to be understood as ad
mitting. All I mean now to point out is, that there
is a way of regarding revelation, with reference to
which his argument does not even possess plausibility.
In proceeding now to give some account of the
opinions of those who have taken a purely practical
or ethical view of the chief end of revelation, I must
go as far back as the seventeenth century to find the
first influential representative of this tendency in post-
reformation times. The man to whom must be as
signed this important position is the famous Amster
dam Jew, Benedict Spinoza, justly regarded as the
father of modern pantheism. Spinoza was not only
the first, but also the most thorough-going exponent
of the purely ethical conception of the aim of the
Bible, which is so much in favour with man}' at the
present time ; and on this account, as well as out of
regard to his general position in the history of
modern speculative and theological thought, he is
entitled to very special attention. The fact of his
belonging to the seventeenth century, and to Holland,
readily suggests the conjecture that his peculiar way
of viewing revelation may have been due to reaction
against the dogmatic spirit of the age, which mani
fested itself with special intensity in that country in
connection with the disputes between the Calvinists
and the Arminians. Such, accordingly, we know
from Spinoza himself to have been the actual fact.
In the Tractatus thfologico-politicus, the writing in
which his opinions on the present subject are set
forth, published anonymously in 1670, the author

36 MISCONCEPTIONS.

clearly explains the occasion and design of his work.
In the preface he tells that he had observed, with
pain, the grievous evils of religious controversy, as
illustrated in all ecclesiastical history, and especially
in the recent dispute between the Arminians and
Calvinists (which led to the assembling of the Synod
of Dort) : how in such disputes natural reason was
despised, and treated as the fountain of impiety, and
human opinions were taken for Divine truth, and
credulity deemed faith, and philosophical controver
sies keenly agitated in Church and State; whence
arose savage hatreds and dissensions, breeding sedition
and schism. Observing these melancholy phenomena,
it occurred to him to ask whether they did not all arise
out of an illegitimate use of Scripture, as an authority
in matters of philosophical and theological opinion in
which reason should be left to its liberty. Men were
fiercely wrangling about predestination and election,
the depravity of human nature, irresistible grace, and
the like topics. What if the Bible was never intended
to decide such questions ; what if the opinions it con
tains bearing thereon be not even mutually consist
ent, and are to be taken simply for what they are
worth, as the personal opinions of the particular
writers speaking according to the best light they
possessed ? With this idea in his mind he resolved,
he tells us, to examine Scripture anew with unbiassed
mind, and to affirm nothing concerning it, and admit
nothing as to its teaching, which was not in accord
ance with its ascertained character. His enquiry re
lated to such topics as these : What was prophecy,
and how did God reveal Himself to the prophets, and
on what ground were they acceptable to God, whether

MI SCONCE P TIONS.

37

because of the truth or value of their thoughts of God
or of nature, or simply because of their piety ; in
what sense were the Hebrews an elect people; whether
miracles, so-called, happened contrary to the order of
nature, and whether they teach the existence and
providence of God more certainly and clearly than
the things which happen in the course of nature, and
whose causes are known ; whether there was anything
in Scripture to justify the vilification of the human
intellect as corrupt and blind, a question whose settle
ment depended on this other; whether the religious
or Divine law revealed by prophets and apostles was
different from that which the natural light of reason
teaches ? On all these questions he arrived at con
clusions radically diverse from those current in the
Church. The authority of the prophets, he found,
had weight only in those things which bear on life
and morals : their opinions no way concern us. These
Hebrew prophets, on an examination of their history
and writings, appeared to be men of singular virtue,
who cultivated piety with great devoutness, and
hence, in Bible language, were said to be filled with
the Spirit of God, and to be men of God, just as a
stately cedar is called a cedar of God. Their chief in
tellectual gift was a lively imagination. They were
not endowed with better minds than other men, and
therefore it is an entire mistake to seek in their writ
ings wisdom and the knowledge of natural and spirit
ual things. All that we can learn from them is what
bears on the fear of God or obedience; in reference
to all else for anything the prophets teach, we may
believe what we please. This is apparent when we
consider the grounds of prophetic certitude, which
3

2 8 MISCONCEPTIONS.

were these three : a vivid imagination of the things
" revealed," a sign specially given for the prophet's
satisfaction, and, above all, a mind steadily inclined
to goodness. The certainty thence arising was only
subjective. The second condition, indeed, may seem
to carry with it objective certitude, but it does not,
because the signs vouchsafed were adapted to the
capacity and opinions of the particular prophet, so
that what would convince one might fail to convince
another. Even the "revelations" made to the
prophets, were adapted not only to the temperament*
the imagination, and the outward circumstances, but
e ven to the peculiar, and it might be erroneous,
opinions of the individual. That the prophets held
erroneous opinions, and did not agree in their
opinions, is apparent from the record. The con
clusion which results from all the facts, is, that we
must not expect to find in the prophetic writings,
that is in the Hebrew Scriptures generally, philo
sophically accurate views concerning God, but merely
such as tend to promote piety and morality, the
prophets not being raised by their prophetic gift
above liability to ignorance and error in regard to
matters of speculation, which have no bearing on
charity and practice. The author thought himself
justified in drawing from the phenomena a similar
inference in reference to the New Testament writings.
The apostles wrote as doctors, not as prophets sup
porting their statements on a Thus saith the Lord,
and they differed from each other in their views.
They are not to be blamed for mixing up religion
with speculation, for the gospel was new, and they
were obliged to gain for it access to men's minds by

MISCONCEPTIONS. 39

accommodating themselves to contemporary thought.
But we may now disregard Paul's philosophy and
theology, and attend only to the few elementary
truths in the teaching of which prophets, apostles,
and Christ are all at one. These truths Spino/a
pronounced to be neither more nor less than the
doctrines of natural religion, which the much decrijd
reason teaches us by its own light.

It does not need to be pointed out to what theory
of revelation these free and frankly expressed opinions
conduct. The substance and the design of revelation
have respect merely to piety and obedience. The
Bible was not intended to teach, and does not in fact
teach, any definite doctrines concerning God, or man,
or the world; but has for its sole object to promote
the practice of godliness, justice, and charity. The
writers of the Bible did not themselves all hold the
same opinions, and therefore it is vain to seek from
their writings one uniform system of dogmas. A man
may make a very wise, good use of these writings, and
be a true believer in the Scripture sense, and yet hold
all manner of opinions, theistic or pantheistic, con
cerning God. Faith consists in cherishing such sen
timents concerning God as are necessary to and in
volved in obedience. It requires, not true, but pious
beliefs. To the catholic faith belong no dogmas con
cerning which there can be controversy amongst hon
est men ; in particular, no such dogmas as those re
lating to predestination or election. It is idle to ap
peal to the Scriptures to decide the controversy con
cerning election. "Klection, in the Old Testament,
simply means that God chose for Israel a particular
spot of the earth wherein they might live in safety

40 MISCONCEPTIONS.

and comfort. The Hebrew people were elected sim
ply to outward privilege, not to exceptional knowl
edge of God, or to be made in an exclusive sense a
holy people. In the New Testament there is a deeper
doctrine of election, taught especially in Paul's epis
tles. But then Paul speaks as a theological doctor,
and we must take his doctrine for what it is worth.

One wonders that a man holding such views should
continue to speak of a revelation, or to believe in it
in any special, distinctive sense. Indeed, we know
that with his speculative opinions Spinoza could not
believe in a revelation, in the sense of a communica
tion of truth to men by the living God with the in
tention of promoting their happiness. He was a
Pantheist, and believed in no living God, in no God
capable of cherishing intentions or performing special
acts. But he does not say so plainly in the Tractatus,
but keeps his philosophy in the background, and ac
commodates his language to theistic opinions that he
may reason with Theists on their own terms. Yet
his speculative bias is plain enough from many indi
cations, and very specially from the views which he
expresses on the subject of miracles. These are in
brief as follows : A miracle, in the sense of an event
contrary to nature, is impossible, the order of nature
being fixed and immutable. The so-called miracles
of Scripture, if real occurrences, were simply events
whose natural causes arc unknown. If from the nat
ure of the case any recorded event could not possibly
have had a natural cause; e.g., the resurrection of a
dead man, then the narrative must be held to be false,
and probably added to the sacred writings by sacri
legious hands. From miracles, however conceived,

MISCONCEPTIONS. 4 1

whether as events contrary to nature, or as events due
to natural but obscure, unknown causes, we can learn
nothing, either as to the being, or the essence, or the
character of God. They are simply prodigies or ac
cidents without significance. We can know God only
through the fixed course of nature, whose laws are
the expression of His eternal will and decrees. Of
course, on this view, the miraculous clement in Script
ure, so far from being the medium of a very special
revelation, is no revelation at all. Nay, on such a
view of the miraculous, the very word revelation, as
applied to Scripture, is evacuated of meaning, and its
use ought to be discontinued, as fitted to foster de
lusion. For a special revelation, made with a definite
purpose, is essentially miraculous ; and if miracle is
to be discarded, words which imply miracle should be
discarded also. In the work we have been speaking
of, Spinoza did not choose to be thoroughly self-con
sistent. He preferred to occupy pro tetnporc the po
sition of one who believed the Bible to be the word
of God, given for a special purpose. But he found
himself somewhat at a loss to tell what the precise
end served was. He supposes some one to ask the
question, What is the use of the Bible, seeing we can
not learn from it any definite doctrine concerning the
nature and attributes of God, but only a few element
ary truths of morality and religion, such as the light
of reason can reveal to thoughtful minds? And he
gives this somewhat enigmatical answer: "Since we
cannot perceive by the light of nature that simple
obedience is the way to salvation, and that revelation
alone teaches us that that is accomplished by the sin
gular grace of God, which we cannot attain by reason,

42 MISCONCEPTIONS.

hence it follows that Scripture has brought an exceed
ingly great consolation to mortals. For while all
without exception can obey, there are comparatively
very few who acquire the habit of virtue by the sole
guidance of reason ; and therefore, unless we had the
testimony of Scripture, we might doubt concerning
the salvation of almost all men." These sentences
produce the impression that their author was puzzled
to discover a presentable ground for the necessity of
revelation. His real opinion, doubtless, was, that a
revelation was unnecessary, as, on his philosophy, we
know it is impossible.

In the century following that in which Spinoza lived,
the same tendency to connect the idea of revelation
exclusively with practice was favoured by the founder
of the critical philosophy and his disciples. Kant and
Fichte were specially conspicuous advocates of the
doctrine that the proper subject of all revelation is
law. The former restricted the sphere of revelation
still further, by conceiving of the laws specially re
vealed as statutory or positive precepts, in contradis
tinction from moral laws. The communication of
such positive precepts by special revelation he repre
sented as made necessary by the weakness of human
nature. Not otherwise can a kingdom of God, or a
society of men associated together for ethical ends,
come into actual being. Such a society is very need
ful to help individuals to fight with evil and to do
good ; and if all men earnestly bent on obeying the
law written on the heart were to unite together for
mutual aid in the culture of morality, they would con
stitute a kingdom of God, or Church. But unfortu
nately men have never been able to establish an eth-

MISCONCEPTIONS. 43

ical society on the basis of the dictates of pure prac
tical reason. They have ever been hard to persuade
that a good life is all that God demands of them ; they
have imagined that their duty to Him must consist
in some special service which He requires of them.
But we can learn what service God requires of us, how
He would have us honour Him, — so far as this honour
goes beyond our general moral obligation, — only by
an express declaration of His will. This declaration,
when made, is a revelation, the contents of which con
sist in a body of positive precepts relating to religious
ritual. The abstract possibility of such a revelation
Kant did not deny; but to maintain its reality in any
given case he regarded as foolhardy, or as prob.ibly
an act of intentional usurpation on the part of one
who wished to increase his influence and authority
over the people. Belief in such a revelation comes
early in a people's history, and is made possible by
their moral rudeness, of which their wise men take
advantage to deceive them for their good.*

Fichte, on the other hand, conceived of revelation
as having for its proper sphere moral law. The design
of all possible revelation, in his view, could only be
to bring the claims of the moral law to bear with
increased power upon the minds of men in a weak
rude moral condition. In his first publication, entitled
An Attempt at a Criticism of all Revelation, which
had for its aim to apply the principles of the Kantian
philosophy to the subject of revealed religion, Fichte
defined the idea of revelation as the idea of an

* Vide " Religion inncrhalb dcr Grcnzcn drr bloscn Vcrnunft,"
III. i. 5; also Zeilcr, " Gcschichtc dor dcutschcn Philosophic."
p. 500.

44 MISCONCEPTIONS.

appearance produced by the Divine causality in the
world of sense, whereby God makes Himself known
as moral Legislator. Such an appearance he admitted
to be physically possible, and, when taking place for
the purpose of educating morally rude men capable
of being influenced only by what addressed itself
to their senses, not unworthy of God ; for, though it
may seem to degrade God by making Him a peda
gogue, yet in truth nothing is unworthy of God that
is not contrary to the moral law. The Divine Being
may humble Himself in the interests of morality ; and
if it be found impossible in any other way to promote
the moral education of the race than by a promulga
tion of duty amid miraculous accompaniments fitted
to awaken awe, right reason cannot object to Deity
condescending to man's need. This theory seems to
have the merit of making room for at least such a
revelation of law as that made to Israel on Sinai.
The practical conclusion, however, of Fichte's criti
cism is a sceptical one. While the abstract possibility
of a revelation is admitted, its verifiablencss is in
effect denied. Revelation, in Fichte's philosophy, as
in Kant's, comes to mean belief in revelation ; and
the belief has its origin, not in any objective Divine
manifestation, but in devices of wise men to make an
impression on the minds of the multitude. It is the
old story of deceit for a beneficent purpose.*

Coming down, now, to our own time, we find the
ethical view of revelation, so called, espoused and
advocated with literary grace and persuasiveness by
Mr. Matthew Arnold in the work already referred to.
Mr. Arnold's way of regarding the Bible has more

* Vide Fichte's Werke, ster Band, p. 81.

MISCONCEP TIONS. 4 -

affinity with Spinoza's than with that of the critical
philosophers, in so far as it insists on the general
tendency of the Scriptures to promote the habit
of virtue, rather than on any special instruction
which they convey on the rules of conduct. Of
Spinoza Mr. Arnold remarks, that he is coming
more and more to the front. The observation is
just ; many things confirm it : the appearance of new
editions of his works, of translations in our language
of some of his particular treatises, such as the
" Tractatus," of which I have already given some
account, and of original studies in his life and
philosophy ;* the increasing prevalence of Pantheistic
modes of thought more or less traceable to his
influence ; the prominent notice taken of his opinions
on miracles and other topics in Apologetic literature.
In one sense, the more he comes to the front the
better, for to know Spinoza is the best way to under
stand modern philosophy and theology. In his
"Ethics" we find a key which opens to us many
mysteries in such writers as Hegel, Schelling, and
Schleicrmachcr, I may indeed almost say in Con
tinental systems of speculative thought generally. In
that work is set forth in short compass, and in clear
incisive style, and without reserve, the doctrines
whereof more recent systems are to a large extent
but voluminous and not very intelligible elaborations.
In Spinoza we are at the sources of the Nile, starting
from which we may with tolerable certainty track the

* The most recent work on Spinoza's life and philosophy, is that
by Pollock, published in 1880. In the last chapter of this work the
author gives an account of the influence of Spinoza on modern
thought.

3*

46 MISCONCEPTIONS.

downward course of the mystic river of Pantheism.
And if one wishes to know the practical outcome of
Pantheism, he need not leave the fountain head. As
from Spinoza he can learn the essential features of
the Pantheistic theory of the universe, so from him
also he can learn the weak points of the theory. For
in him is no disguise, no prudential reservation, no
accommodation to existing fashions of thought, on
such topics as human freedom, the reality of moral
evil, and the life to come ; but a blunt denial of all
our most cherished beliefs on these and kindred topics.
But what I wished to say was, that no better evidence
of the truth of Mr. Arnold's remark concerning
Spinoza need be sought than that furnished in his
own writings. In " Literature and Dogma," in par
ticular, Spinoza does come to the front dressed up in
attractive modern guise, as a smart modern man of
letters and child of nineteenth-century culture, but
still plainly recognisable by his unmistakable Jewish
physiognomy. " Literature and Dogma " is to a large
extent just the Tractatus popularized and reproduced
with much expository skill and easy grace of style.
Arnold, like Spinoza, conceives of the Bible as a book,
not of Dogma, but of Conduct. Its function is, not to
teach us doctrines about God or other transcendental
topics, but to set 'forth the supreme value of right
conduct ; and its claim to the lasting reverence and
gratitude of mankind rests on the fact that it. has
performed this high task incomparably well. So far
from being a book of dogmatic divinity, th£ Bible
does not so much as declare in a dogmatic theological
sense that God exists, or that He is personal, or that
He is a Being to whom you can with propriety apply

MISCONCEPTIONS. 47

the masculine pronoun. But there is one thing the
Bible docs, over and above emphasizing the supreme
importance of conduct. It recognises and proclaims
with due emphasis the great truth that there is a
power in t/te world not ourselves waking for righteous
ness, tending to bring about a correspondence between
character and lot, and so to make the good happy
and the wicked miserable. This is not a dogma, but
a fact which is capable of being verified by observation
and by the study of history, and which may be admit
ted by all men, irrespective of their speculative opin
ions, by Atheists and Pantheists and Materialists, not
less than by Theists. In this affirmation Mr. Arnold
is certainly right, for the fact in question has been
acknowledged by men of all schools, and by some it
has been asserted with even greater emphasis than
by himself; by none in modern times with more
power than by Thomas Carlyle. The author of
"Literature and Dogma" has the merit of coining a
new phrase to describe the old fact; but his phrase
means just what other men have spoken of by other
names. Even Strauss, Atheist and Materialist though
he was in his later days, acknowledged the fact denoted
by Mr. Arnold's Pcnuer not ourselves, under the name
of the moral order of the world, in some respects a
preferable expression. But the author of " Literature
and Dogma" makes no claim to have discovered the
fact. The service which he claims to have rendered
in his work, is to have duly directed the attention of
his contemporaries to the relation of the Bible writers
to the fact, which he thinks has been greatly lost
sight of in consequence of the misuse of the Bible by
professional interpreters, who have looked into the

48 MISCONCEPTIONS.

sacred writings only for their pet dogmas. The Bible
writers, he tells us, though they lived many centuries
ago, had eyes to discern this great fact. They have
also been able in their writings to give it adequate
powerful expression. Properly speaking, these writ
ings have no other aim than to assert the fact in every
possible form, as a motive to right conduct. They
do not all assert it in the same way. The Old Testa
ment writers sought the proofs that the Power not
ourselves is at work too much in outward lot; and
inasmuch as that power in its working only tends to
unite righteousness and felicity, and does not by any
means fully reach the goal, their minds became per
plexed, and they set about supplementing their grand
fundamental doctrine by inventing fairy tales about a
Messiah and a Messianic kingdom, and a life hereafter.
Jesus came and taught men a new method of getting
the reward of righteousness, which made them inde
pendent of outward events; the method, viz., of seek
ing felicity within, in the state of the spirit ; and a
new secret for bringing blessedness into the heart,
viz., self-denial. His was the perfect doctrine. But
even the ancient Hebrew prophets, with all their
errors and superstitions, rendered an inestimable ser
vice to mankind by their proclamation of the truth
that conduct is the supremely important thing and
that the Power not ourselves, — what they called the
Eternal God, — is on the side of righteousness. This
doctrine was worthy to be called a revelation, if any
utterances of the human mind may receive that name ;
and the Bible is the best of all books because, more
than all other books, it directs men's attention to that
which is at least three-fourths of human life, and more

MISCONCEP TIONS. 49

to be regarded by far than culture, or art, or any other
human interest. After we have removed from the
ancient book all that is erroneous or worthless, —
miraculous narratives, fairy tales of a future golden
age, incredible dogmas, — there remains a large mass
of inestimably precious material devoted to the praise
of righteousness and the inculcation of pure moral
ity, with an enthusiasm which raises ethics to the
dignity of religion.

I have no desire to undervalue the service rendered
by Mr. Arnold to the Bible by the view of it which
he has presented in so attractive a garb. Still less do
I desire to undervalue the Bible viewed simply as a
book, such as he makes it — a book which is pervaded
by a noble passion for righteousness and by an in
tense belief in the reality of a moral order of the
world. Whatever more may be said of the Bible, it is
certainly true that it possesses these characteristics in
a degree altogether unique. The Bible stands artone
among books for the emphatic and persistent way in
which it exalts morality, righteousness, to the sov
ereign place among human interests, and for the
glowing eloquence with which in all its parts it de
clares the truth that verily there is a reward for the
righteous, and a God that judgcth upon the earth;
and on this account it must ever continue to com
mand the reverent respect of all morally earnest men,
whatever their theological position. But the question
stands over, whether Mr. Arnold, in directing atten
tion to these characteristics, has given a full account
of the Bible, or has even pointed out its chief peculi
arity. In connection with that, another question has
to be asked, viz., whether miracles can, as Mr. Arnold

5 o MISCONCEP TfONS.

alleges, be removed from the Bible without material
injury to its utility, or without affecting our concep
tion of its chief end. " There is nothing," says this
author, " one would more desire for a person or doc
ument one greatly values, than to make them inde
pendent of miracles. And with regard to the Old
Testament we have done this, for we have shown that
the essential matter in the Old Testament is the reve
lation to Israel of the immeasurable grandeur, the
eternal necessity, the priceless blessing of that with
which not less than three-fourths of human life is in
deed concerned, righteousness. And it makes no
difference to the preciousness of this revelation
whether we believe that the Red Sea miraculously
opened a passage to the Israelites, and the walls of
Jericho miraculously fell down at the blast of Joshua's
trumpet, or that these stories arose in the same way
as other stories of the kind."* I am not careful to
dispute this statement. But suppose the Bible as it
stands contains another idea even more characteristic
than the one Mr. Arnold signalizes, an idea to which
miracle, — not, of course, this or that miracle, but a
miraculous element, — is essential. In that case, to
omit miracles, will simply signify changing the very
fact-basis, on which our theory of revelation rests.
The Bible may still contain much edifying matter,
but it will be an entirely different book. It will con
vey different ideas from the actual Bible concerning
God, man, and the world and their relations ; that is
to say, it will teach by implication a different theory
of the universe. The mutilated Bible will suggest a

* "Literature and Dogma," pp. 123, 124.

Ml 'SCONCE P TIOXS. 5 !

different view of the raison (Tttrc of its own exist
ence, so different that it will be as it were the play of
Hamlet without the part of Hamlet. That there is
such an idea in the Bible I believe, and in the next
chapter I will endeavour to explain what it is.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION,

CHAPTER II.
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION.

IN proceeding now to explain my view as to the
chief design of revelation, it may be well to preface
the discussion with a few remarks on the sense to be
attached to the term Revelation. In last chapter I
hinted parenthetically that Revelation and the Bible
are not to be identified, as if the two terms were in
all respects synonymous, and I may now briefly state
the grounds of that opinion. There arc then certain
advantages to be gained from keeping in view the
distinction between Revelation and Scripture, wljile,
of course, ever recognising their intimate relations to
each other. In the first place, the formal and de
liberate recognition of the distinction may help us to
wean ourselves from the one-sided doctrinaire con
ception of revelation which has so extensively pre
vailed in past times. Then, further, if once we get it
into our mind, that Revelation is one thing, Scripture
another, though closely related, thing, bjing in truth
its record, interpretation, and reflection, it will help
to make us independent of questions concerning the
dates of books. When the various parts of the
Bible were written, is an obscure and difficult ques-

56 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

tion on which much learned debate has taken place,
and is still going on ; and we must be content to let
the debate run its course, for it will not be stopped
either by our wishes or by ecclesiastical authority.
And one thing which will help us to be patient, is a
clear perception that the order in which revelation
was given is to be distinguished from the order in
which the books which contain the record thereof
were written. It is conceivable that revelations might
be given in the inverse order to that in which they
were recorded. Thus, e.g., a certain school of critics
tells us that the more important prophetic writings
are of earlier date than the legal portions of the
Pentateuch ; that in fact, so far as the literary record
of revelation goes, the Prophets were before the Law,
not after it, as the familiar phrase, " the Law and the
Prophets," implies. But the law may have preceded
prophecy in revelation though not in writing ; in
which case not only will the phrase " Law and
Prophets " still have its truth, but, what is of much
more importance, the natural order of sequence will
be observed in the Bible history of the course of rev
elation.

But a still more important advantage than either
of the foregoing is to be reaped from keeping in view
the distinction in question. It is this, that the dis
tinction makes room for the idea that possibly the
revelation which God has made to men consisted, not
in words exclusively, or even chiefly, but in deeds as
well, yea in deeds above all, forming, when connected
together, a very remarkable history. What if the
most appropriate formula for the act of revelation
were, not, " Thus saith the Lord," but " Thus did the

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 57

Lord"? In that case we could imagine a very im
portant revelation taking place, and entering as a
divine element into human history, without such a
book as the Bible coming into existence at all. A
book is not necessary to the being of a revelation. It
may be necessary to its well-being, that it is, to insure
that the revelation shall accomplish the ends for which
it was given ; though here we do well to bear in
mind the caution of Bishop Butler, that we are no
judges whether a revelation not committed to writing
would or would not have answered its purpose. As
an antidote to the tendency of believing minds to
pronounce dogmatically on such questions, he re
marks very pertinently: " I ask, What purpose? It
would not have answered all the purposes which it
has now answered, and in the same degree ; but it
would have answered others, or the same in different
degrees. And which of these were the purposes of
God, and best fell in with His general government,
we could not at all have determined beforehand."*
But without pressing such considerations, it may be
admitted that a record of revelation of some sort,
oral or written, was indispensable ; though there is
truth in the remark of Rothe, that " Divine revelation
works on incessantly as co-efficient in all human
knowledge, independently of its being known and re
cognised as revelation. "f It may further be admit
ted that an oral record, by means of one generation
showing God's works to another, is so liable to cor
ruption, that a written record may be pronounced, in
the language of the Westminster Confession, " most

* "Analogy," Part II., chap. iii. f"Zur Uugmatik," p. 78.

58 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

necessary" ; * that is to say, of such a high degree of
utility as amounts to a practical necessity. My
present object is not, of course, to disparage the value
of Holy Scripture, but to assert the possibility of a
revelation without a Bible, and that in the interest of
a conception of revelation to which the Bible itself
does ample justice, and which alone enables us to do
full justice to the Bible. Put the book foremost in
your idea of revelation, and you almost inevitably
think of revelation as consisting in words, doctrines.
Put it in the background for a moment, forget at this
stage that there is a book, and you make room in
your mind for the idea that revelation may proceed
by acts as well as words, even more characteristically
than by words. It is very necessary that we should
have this idea in our minds in advancing to the con
sideration of the question, What is the chief end of
revelation? for it will appear that that end was such
as to demand Divine self-manifestation by action, not
to the exclusion of words, but by action very specially
—by acts of the miraculous order largely, such as
those which Mr. Arnold thinks he can eliminate from
the Bible without detriment to its practical value.

Revelation, then, does not mean causing a sacred
book to be written for the religious instruction of
mankind. What then does it mean? It signifies
God manifesting Himself in the history of the world
in a supernatural manner and for a special purpose.
Manifesting Himself ; for the proper subject of reve
lation is God. The Revealer is also the Revealed.
This is recognised in the words of the Westminster
Confession : " It pleased the Lord to reveal Himself,

Chapter i. i.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 59

and to declare that His will unto His church."* Mani
festing Himself in history, I add, to distinguish the
revelation now under discussion from that which God
has made of Himself in Nature. The words, " in a
supernatural manner and for a special purpose," are
included in the definition to distinguish the subject
under consideration from that revelation of God as a
moral Governor which is discernible in the ordinary
course of Providence. I believe that we have the
record of such a special revelation in the Bible, and
the question I have undertaken to discuss is, What is
its nature and design ? In other words : If revelation in
general signify Divine self-manifestation, under what
aspect did God manifest Himself in that revelation
whereof we have a record in the Holy Scriptures?

To that question my reply is: The revelation
recorded in the Scriptures is before all things a self-
manifestation of God, as the God of grace. In that
revelation God appears as one who cherishes a
gracious purpose towards the human race. The rev
elation consists, not in the mere intimation of the
purpose, but more especially in the slow but steadfast
execution of it by a connected series of transactions
which all point in one direction, and at length reach
their goal in the realization of the end contemplated
from the first. As has been well said: " If we have
any revelation from God at all, we have it at the heart
of a great historical development ; and if we are to
find the evidence of it anywhere, we must seek for it
as the cause and vital force of historical movements
and events which otherwise would never have arisen,
or, at least, would not have assumed their special

* Chapter i. i.

6o THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

shape and significance. "* The animating soul of this
historical movement was a purpose of grace, in which,
as eventually became apparent, all mankind was con
cerned, though the fact was hid during the ages of
preparation. But as the word "grace" is in certain
departments of theology associated with very mys
terious ideas, I must be careful to clear it as much as
possible of associations fitted to create a prejudice at
this stage. It is used here in a very simple, intel
ligible sense, which can be easily defined by a form
of expression antithetical to that employed by Mr.
Arnold to define his idea of God. Mr. Arnold de
scribes God as "a Power not ourselves, making for
righteousness." When we speak of God as the God
of grace, we mean to represent Him as a Power not
ourselves, making for mercy ; a Power that dealeth
not with men after their sins, but overcometh evil
with good ; a Power acting as a redeeming, healing
influence on the moral and spiritual disease of the
world. This is assuredly a God-worthy representa
tion. Grace, so defined, is indeed the highest cate
gory under which we can think of God. It rises as
much above righteousness as righteousness rises
above the category under which natural religion con
ceives God, that, viz., of Might directed by intelligence.
A God of righteousness is certainly a great advance
on a God of mere power ; yet it is only a step upwards
towards a higher idea of God, in which the Divine

* Smyth, "Old Faith in New Lights," p. 37. This is an admi
rable, and on the whole very successful attempt to adjust the apolo
getic argument to the modern idea of Evolution, as applied in
science and in criticism. (Scribner & Co., New York).

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 6 1

Being becomes Self-communicating Redeeming Love.*
God cannot be said to have been fully revealed till Me
has been revealed in this aspect. And as God has mani
fested Himself in nature as Power controlled by in
telligence, and in the moral order of the world as a
Righteous Ruler, so we should expect to find Him
revealing Himself as a loving Father or gracious
Redeemer. It cannot be denied that such a revela
tion is very much needed. The moral condition of
the human race makes it very desirable. I speak of
that condition simply as it reveals itself to observa
tion, without assuming that we know anything of its
cause. The doctrine of a Fall may or may not be
true ; at present, I do not care or need to know.
However sin came into the world, the fact is, it is
here, bringing manifold misery in its train. And on
any theory as to the origin of sin, it is very desirable
that it should, if possible, be cast out, and the mani
fold evils it has caused be cured. It were eminently
worthy of God to undertake the task ; and that He
should undertake it is not only conceivable, but
probable. What more worthy of God, and therefore
what more likely, than that He, looking down on a
race enveloped in moral darkness and corruption,
should be moved with compassion, and resolve to do
all that is possible to dispel the darkness by communi
cating the knowledge of Himself, and to remove the
corruption by measures fitted to elevate and purify?
And if man's state creates a need for a revelation of
grace, it cannot be said that Nature or ordinary
Providence supplies all the revelation that is required.

* Vid. Schweitzer, " Glaubcnslehrc," vol. i., p. 311.
4

62 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION.

It is true, indeed, as Bishop Butler has pointed out,
— for few things have escaped him, — that there is a
kind of rudimentary Gospel even in nature, hints that
the God who made the world is one in whom a com
passionate spirit dwells, and dim foreshadowings of a
higher kingdom in which grace exercises free sway.*
Health injured by folly can, within certain limits, be
recovered ;" diseases have their remedies, some known,
more perhaps as yet unknown; broken bones knit
again. Many such things there are to remind us that
the constitution of nature is on the side of mercy,
and that when men talk of the inexorable way in
which natural law works on, inflicting penalties for
transgression irrespective of all changes of mind on
the part of the transgressor, they are only looking at
one side of a matter which has two sides. In like
manner it may be said of the moral order of the world,
that it is not merely a Power making for righteous
ness and against unrighteousness, — that is to say,
playing the part of a retributive justice, — but more
over, a Power that dealeth not with men after their
sins, but is merciful and gracious, and slow to anger,
and repenteth of the evil threatened. Some of the
Scripture declarations to this effect concerning God,
are simply readings off from the phenomena presented
by ordinary Providence. Still, while all this is to be
thankfully acknowledged, it remains true that the
Gospel in Nature and in ordinary Providence is very
dim and rudimentary. It is but the starlight of
Divine Love, and casts only a faint ray of hope on
the moral destiny of man. The revelation of grace in

* " Analogy," Part II. chap. v.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELA TION1. 63

these lower spheres comes far short of gracious possi
bilities. We can conceive manifestations of grace far
in excess of those vouchsafed in the order of nature
or in the history of nations. These lower manifesta
tions, far from contenting us, only make us long for
something more unmistakable in intention and more
effective in influence, and inspire in our souls the hope
that, the dim starlight of grace having been given, the
sunlight will not be withheld.

To no one who accepts the theistic view of the
universe ought the fulfilment of this hope to seem in
credible. We know, of course, that such an expecta
tion must appear a dream to the thorough-going ad
vocates of philosophic naturalism. Such a Divine
self-manifestation as is the object of the hope, is im
possible except on a conception of God which natural
ism disallows. Moreover, the end for which the
manifestation takes place, — the redemption of man,
the cure of moral evil, — appears from the same view
point unattainable. It was one of the chief objec
tions of Celsus to the Incarnation, that it had in view
an unattainable purpose. Moral evil, he said, springs
from a necessity of nature, having its origin in matter,
and its amount is constant and invariable. Even if
temporary amelioration were practicable, it is hardly
worth the trouble, for all things are subject to the
law of periodicity. That which has been shall be.
The present state of things will reproduce itself in
some future .ton — any present state of things you
choose to think of. As Origcn remarked, this doc
trine, if true, is manifestly subversive of Christianity,
for it is idle to speak of a redemptive economy acting
on free agents by moral influences, where a reign of

64 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION,

necessity obtains ; and if all things must eventually
return to the state they were once in, then man's un
redeemed state must have its turn, and Christ shall
have died in vain. Modern naturalistic philosophy,
whether pessimistic or optimistic in tendency, equally
excludes the idea of redemption in any real sense of
the word. The pessimist denies, not only that the
world can be made better by any outside influence,
but even that it has any inherent tendency to grow
better. Things in general, and men in particular, are
going on from bad to worse ; and the only deliver
ance possible from the moral and physical evil so
widely prevalent, is that the universe should cease to
exist. Optimistic naturalism takes a more cheerful
view of the situation. There is a steady progress on
wards in the universe of being, both in the physical
and in the moral sphere. The world, says Strauss, is
not planned by a highest reason, but it has the high
est reason for its goal. In like manner it may be, and
by Strauss and others is, admitted that the tendency
in the moral sphere is towards an ever increasing re
alization of the ideal moral order. But this hope for
the future, as cherished by atheistic evolutionists, is
not based on any belief in a Divine influence, or even
in the free exercise of his moral faculties by man. To
such thinkers, man is not a free being ; and his moral
improvement, if it deserves the name, is the result of
the upward tendency of all surrounding cosmic influ
ences.

No one who believes that there is a God, and that
man is a moral personality, will rest satisfied with this
theory of redemption by a purely physical evolution.
However naturalistic in tendency, however much in-

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 65

fluenced by the sceptical spirit of the age, he will strive
to hold fast, though it were in the baldest form, the
idea of a redemption — a moral amelioration, springing
out of influences that can be traced up to God as their
source, and that act on man's reason and will and bet
ter inclinations. Repudiating all belief in supernatu
ral grace, in the sense of the creeds, as a source of
moral regeneration, and in an objective Atonement,
he will yet base his hope for the transformation of
human character, not only on the elements of good
to be found even in the most depraved, and on the
beneficent constitution of the universe acting on these
from without, and provoking them into conflict with
the evil within, and otherwise influencing men for
good even when they are unconscious of it, but on
" the action of the Divine idea, as the Gospel presents
it, upon the reason of man — the idea given in that
revelation of the Divine good-will, or paternal relation
towards us, by which Christ has reinforced our better
nature, enabling us to be intelligent fellow-workers
with God in our conflict with evil, and giving a higher
aim to our life."* From the orthodox point of view
this- is certainly a very unsatisfactory account of the
renovating power of Christianity; indeed, a more
meagre and colourless theory of Redemption it is
hardly possible to conceive. It contains, however,
one thing in advance of optimistic evolutionism, viz.,
the recognition of the inspiring influence of the Chris
tian idea of God, as a God of love, or, in relation to
sin, a God of grace. This idea the advocates of the
theory call a revelation, in the sense that Christ, by

* Vide " Scotch Sermons." Sermon X., on Ths Ki'norati ng Power
of Christianity. By the Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D.

66 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

His superior insight, for the first time discovered the
import of the fact that the tendency of the influences
by which we are surrounded in this world is on the
whole in favour of good, rather than of evil. This
tendency they regard as a feature impressed by God
on the creation, and as an evidence of His design to
secure the triumph of what is good, and to deliver men
from the power of evil. And it is regarded as Christ's
great merit, to have proclaimed to the world the sig
nificance of this divinely originated beneficent consti
tution of things. " After being hidden from human
vision for long ages, or only partially surmised by
other teachers, this design was at length brought fully
to light, and presented to our faith by the Founder
of Christianity."* The merit of this theory, in the
eyes of modern culture, will be, that it reduces the
fact-basis of its doctrine of redemption to something
which can be acknowledged by men of all creeds, the-
istic or atheistic, provided they are not pessimists.
What it builds on that fact-basis is the inspiring eleva
ting power that lies in conceiving of the Author of the
beneficent constitution of the universe as a Father.
And without doubt there is much in a name; yet it
is questionable whether it be worth while formulating
a distinctive doctrine of renovation, when it differs in
nothing but a name from the creed of Agnosticism.
Strauss believed in the beneficent tendencies of the
Universum. What great difference does it make
whether I call the stream of tendency Universum or
Father? The one name is warmer than the other,
that is all. Every one whose mind is not completely

* " Scotch Sermons." Sermon X.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVEL A TION. 67

dominated by the naturalistic spirit of the age, will
turn from so bald a doctrine in quest of a theory that
shall fill the word grace with more meaning, and bring
to bear on man a more powerful force tending towards
the improvement of his moral condition.

We rise at least one degree in our idea of a revela
tion of grace, when we see in Christ, not merely one
who read off accurately the beneficent tendency of
the universe, for the enlightenment of mankind, but
one who in His own person presented to view at once
the ideal of humanity perfectly realised, and the ful
ness of Divine grace. If Christ be the sinless man,
and if, — in His wondrous sympathy with the sinful,
which made Him love them in spite of their moral
loathcsomeness, and hope for their repentance when
others despaired, — He be the revealer, or exegete of
the very inmost Spirit of God, then He is in a most
real sense a supernatural self-manifestation of God as
the God of grace. A sinless man is a moral miracle ;
and the gift of him to the world is an act of creative
power in which grace is revealed, because the aim of
the gift is to show to men their own ideal, that by it,
hovering above them in peerless excellence, they may
be drawn upwards to the heights of virtue. A man
full of love to the sinful, though personally sinless, is
still more emphatically a revelation of grace, because
in him God makes known to men for their comfort
the depths of pity for the guilty hidden in the Divine
bosom. Such a man, sinless yet sympathetic, awakens
in me many emotions fitted to act as motives to vir
tue. As an ideal, he excites admiration and aspira
tion, and likewise shame, sorrow, humiliation, in view
of my moral shortcoming, revealed to my view in

68 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

darkest colours by the contrast between his character
and my own. As a sympathetic friend and brother,
he quickens in the breast of a penitent hope, at the
moment when he is prone to give way to despair.
What more likely than that such a man should be
sent into the world in the course of the ages, to be at
once the crown of the first creation, and the starting
point of a new career of infinite hope for mankind,
the head of a new humanity? And what more wor
thy of God than to undertake in good time the work
of preparing the world for the advent of such a divine
ly endowed Man, so that he might come when and
where the human race was in the fittest condition to
receive and retain his beneficent influence ; determin
ing, e.g., the people' out of which he should spring,
and so guiding their history that he should receive
from them the maximum of endowment capable of
being transmitted by the law of heredity, and should
find in them the best possible leverage for acting on
the world ? Would not such an historical preparation
for the advent of the Divine Man be a veritable revela
tion of grace, natural in its gradual progress, yet su
pernatural in its immanent aim ? And would not the
Man, when he came, be a fitting consummation to
such a divinely guided process?

In these sentences I have sketched a theory of a su
pernatural revelation of grace, based on such a concep
tion of the person of Christ as that contained in the
Christology of Schleiermacher. It is a theory which
reduces the amount of the miraculous element in reve
lation to a minimum, for it regards Christ only as a
sinless Man in whom the Spirit of God dwelt in the
fullest possible measure. It is also a theory which

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 69

introduces the least possible amount of mystery into
the nature of the influence exercised by Christ as Re
deemer. He works on the world as a redeeming pow
er by example and by sympathy, by ethical as distinct
from what Schleiermacher characterized as magical
influence. But in proportion as this theory gains in
rationality, so to speak, it loses in motive power. For
by its conception of Christ as the Ideal Man, it ex
cludes from the number of redeeming influences the
poiver of God in self-sacrifice, which can enter only
with faith in the Incarnation. When Christ is re
garded as a Divine Being entering into humanity with
a redeeming purpose in His heart, we then see in God
a Being subjected to sorrow by human sins, and com
pelled by the instincts and yearnings of His love to
become a burden-bearer to His own creatures. And
through such a view of God alone do we begin to
comprehend what a revelation of grace means. For
now we see grace revealing itself, not merely by word,
through a doctrine concerning God taught by a proph
et, or by Christ, to the effect that He is a Father, and
that the essence of His being is love — not by word
alone, but by act. And that is germane to the nature
of grace. It is of the nature of true love to reveal it
self by deeds as well as words. It is only feigned
love that speaks kind words without corresponding
actions. Grace revealed in doctrine is of value only
as the promise of a higher revelation, in which all gra
cious possibilities shall be realised ; and only in God
subjecting Himself to sacrifice are these possibilities
realised. Till I see that spectacle, I can always im
agine something higher; but when I see it, I perceive
that the limit of gracious possibility is touched. In
4*

70 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

the Cross the revelation of grace reaches its culmina
tion. And just because it does so, I feel that the In
carnation which makes this result possible is credible,
notwithstanding the mystery and the miracle involved
in the event. It is inconsistent for any one who be
lieves grace or love to be a real attribute of God, to
stumble at the supernatural in revelation ; for the ex
clusion simply makes it impossible for the Divine
Being to manifest Himself as the God of grace to the
full extent of what is involved in the idea of grace.
Yet with such inconsistency many in our day are
chargeable who are emphatic in their proclamation of
the Fatherhood of God, yet accept the philosophic
doctrine of Divine immanence which makes God a
prisoner in nature, unable in any case or for any rea
son to break through the chain of natural causality.

Thus Mr. Rathbone Greg, listening to the voice of
his heart or his moral consciousness, — the sole source
of revelation to the school he belongs to, 'that of
modern speculative Theism, — feels constrained to
think of God as a Personal Fatherly Being. " Strauss's
Universum," he tells us, " Comte's Humanity, even
Mr. Arnold's stream of tendency that makes for
righteousness, excite in me no worship. I cannot
pray to the 'Immensities' and the 'Eternities' of
Carlyle. They proffer me no help, they vouchsafe no
sympathy, they suggest no comfort. It may be that
such a personal God is a mere anthropomorphic crea
tion. But at least in resting in it, I rest in something
I almost seem to realize ; at least I share the view
which Jesus indisputably held of the Father whom
He obeyed, communed with and worshipped."* The

* " Creed of Christendom." Introduction, p. xc., 3rd ed.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 7 1

words are full of interest, both for the pathetic indi
cation which they give of the craving of the human
heart for a living God with whom it can have real
communion, even when the intellect is clouded with
doubt, and also for the incidental evidence they afford
of the unreliableness of the moral consciousness as a
source of revelation concerning Divine things. But
at least, if the moral consciousness is to be the source
of revelation, let it be used consistently. If at the
bidding of the heart I am to believe in a God who is
a Person, why not at its bidding also believe in a God
who is not imprisoned in the world, but can hear
prayer, exercise a Providence over all, do miracles,
become man, demonstrate His grace by entering into
the measures of humanity and passing through a cur
riculum of temptation and suffering? If God is to be
personal, free, good, let Him be it out and out. I
desire a God at liberty to do heroic things, to humble
Himself.

Miss Cobbe, another representative of the same
school, — on the authority of the same oracle, the
moral consciousness, — declares that God is good, and
good in our sense of the word. Very well ; I accept
the dictum cordially, and I point in proof of its truth
to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who, being rich,
for our sakes became poor. Modern Theism, with its
doctrine of immanence, can point to nothing like that
in proof that God is love in the human sense of the
word. A God imprisoned in the world has no career
for self-sacrifice, that is, He cannot be love as we un
derstand love ; for love among men shows itself most
reliably and conspicuously by self-sacrifice for the
good of others.

72 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

If the Incarnation of God for the purpose of acting
as a redemptive power in the moral world be, as we
have just seen, intrinsically probable on the principles
of Theism, there is little room for doubt as to the fit
ness of Divine self-sacrifice to be a mighty force mak
ing for the regeneration of mankind. Therein indeed
lies a very power of God unto salvation in all who
believe. This may be confidently affirmed, quite
irrespective of all questions as to rival theories of
atonement. The truth of the statement rests on no
special theory as to the theological significance of
Christ's death, but simply on the fact that the passion
of the Saviour was the passion of Deity. Admit that
fact, and put on it any theological construction you
please, — find in it an objective atonement for sin, or
only a magnificent demonstration of self-sacrificing
love intended to act on the minds of men as an ethi
cal influence ; in either case it cannot but prove a
truly Divine power making for redemption. The
history of the Christian Church supplies sufficient
evidence on that score, in the form of multitudes in
every age turned from sin to righteousness, turned,
not by particular theories of atonement, but by the
great broad fact that the Son of God suffered on the
cross for man's sin. The question as to the right
theoretical construction to be put on that fact be
longs to Biblical theology, and is simply a question
of interpretation. The apologist has no vital interest
in the decision. The chief consideration biassing
him in favour of the theological doctrine of an object
ive Atonement, is that, whereas, on the ethical influ
ence theory, Christ's power to act on the world as
Redeemer is limited to those who become acquainted

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 73

with His history, on this view Christ's atoning death
becomes valid for all time as a sacrifice offered by the
Eternal Spirit of holy love, and may exercise an im
portant influence on the destinies of the generations
which lived before His advent, as well as on those
which came after, and of those who have never heard
His name, as well as on those to whom the Gospel
has been preached. Those who deny an objective
Atonement, simply cancel the Godward aspect of
Christ's self-sacrifice ; the human aspect of unspeak
able sympathy and love, taking on itself the burden
of the world's sin and misery, remains, with all the
ethical power to change the current of the moral
affections and to inspire enthusiastic devotion to the
Divine kingdom.

But the question still remains, whether the Script
ures, which purport to be the records of revelation,
bear out the view I have given as to the chief end for
which a revelation was vouchsafed. Does the litera
ture of the Bible, on thoughtful perusal, convey the
impression that its contents chiefly relate to a purpose
of grace, and that its great watchword is redemption?
Now there can be no hesitation as to the answer to
be given to this question, so far as the New Testa
ment is concerned. Christianity, the New Testament
being witness, is emphatically and before all things
the religion of redemption. Mr. Arnold sums up
Christ's teaching in two sentences : " Seek thy hap
piness from within, not from without "; and, " that
thou mayest be happy, thou must deny thyself."
Christ did say these things ; but He had a great deal
more to say than they amount to. There arc other
sayings even more characteristic of His doctrine, and

74 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

more instructive as to the nature of His mission ; two
in particular. These are : " The Son of Man is come
to save that which was lost," and " The Kingdom of
heaven is at hand." The former saying, often uttered
by Jesus, implies that His mission had special refer
ence to the sinful ; and in accordance with this we
find from the Gospel records that He spent much of
His time among people belonging to the degraded
classes of Jewish society. This part of His conduct,
as all know, was much misunderstood, and gave fre
quent occasion for faultfinding, whereby He was put
on His defence. The defences He offered were very
striking, very beautiful, and very instructive as to the
nature of the religion which He came to inaugurate.
He said at one time, " They that be whole need not
a Physician, but they that are sick," to signify that
Christianity is a religion of redemption, and there
fore busies itself fitly with those who most urgently
need remedy. At another time He said in effect,
" To whom much is forgiven the same loveth much,"
to teach that Christianity not only occupies itself with
the sinful, but has an interest in taking pains to make
converts from among the greatest offenders, because
among these it finds the greatest capacity of devotion.
On a third occasion He said, " There is joy in heaven
over one sinner repenting, more than over ninety and
nine just persons who need no repentance," to inti
mate that in the view of Christianity the meanest of
mankind was worth saving ; the repentance of even a
poor publican (for such a case was in Christ's view
when He spake the saying quoted) an event of solemn
interest, and a most fitting occasion of gladness.
From these golden words it is evident that Christ's

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TIO.V. 75

mission, in His own view, was, before all, that of a
spiritual Healer. And without going into details, for
which there is no space, I may remark, that from all
our Lord's recorded utterances, it appears that the
Kingdom He proclaimed was a Kingdom of grace,
open to all on condition of faith and repentance — a
Kingdom whose advent was good news, and which
was itself the siimmum bonuin, because therein God
in His Paternal Benignity admitted m^n freely for
given to unrestricted fellowship with Himself, and
so united them in fraternal bonds to each other as
members of a holy commonwealth. Christ's teach
ing on both heads, the nature of His own mission and
the nature of the Kingdom, was thus full of grace, as
He Himself was full of grace, as the Friend of sinners
and Redeemer of men.

In the Pauline conception of Christianity it is not
less conspicuously the religion of redemption. Paul
indeed seems constantly to be occupied with the idea
of righteousness ; but righteousness in his pages is
really a synonym for grace. The righteousness of the
Pauline epistles is usually, though not invariably, an
objective righteousness, not in us, but hovering over
us, a gift of Divine grace, the righteousness of God
given to faith. This may seem a very artificial idea
of righteousness, but that is a question of words; the
thing which Paul is ever thinking of is the grace of
God that bringeth salvation. The Master and the
Apostle in their respective types of doctrine coincide
in the main. They certainly contemplate the same
thing, the sununum bonnin, from different points of
view; but it is the same thing both have in their
eye ; and even the respective view-points, as we shall

76 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION.

see hereafter, are more closely related than they
seem.*

As Paul read the Old Testament, it also had to do
above all things with redemption or the purpose of
grace. The chief thing he found there, the kernel or
hidden treasure of the Hebrew Scriptures, was the
revelation of the Promise. To the ordinary Jew the
Law appeared the principal matter, the promise re
tiring into the background, recognised doubtless as
the end to be reached by the keeping of the law as
the means, but completely overshadowed by the im
portance attached to the means. But Paul inverted
the order of importance, and vindicated for the prom
ise the place of supremacy. Before the law in time,
it was therefore also entitled to come after it, super
seding it when it had served its temporary purpose,
which was simply to prepare the race of Abraham and
the world generally, in its minority, for the enjoyment
of the promise when the heir entered on his majority,
and became at length a genuine Son of God.

Was Paul's reading of the Old Testament correct,
or did he read into it a system of ideas not really
there, revealed to his mind, not by legitimate exegesis,
but by a peculiar religious experience? Primd facie
the latter may appear to be the true state of the case.
Pfleiderer accordingly affirms that the Apostle's view
of the relation between the law and the promise " was
quite remote from the historical intention of the law-
giving, and wholly without ground in the letter of the
law." " It is," he says, " for the consciousness which

* Some further observations on Christ's doctrine and Paul's con
cerning the gift of grace, as compared with each other, will be
found in chapter vi. of this work.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TfON.

77

takes its stand on the historical soil of the Old Testa-
ment, simply a matter of course, that the law would
not be given in order to increase sin through its non-
fulfilment, but in order to be fulfilled, and so to lead
to righteousness. Nor could it appear to such a con
sciousness that this aim of the law stood in any op
position to the promise to Abraham ; on the contrary,
it would appear to him 5 matter of course that God
gave to Abraham the blessing on the understanding
that the seed of Abraham was to render obedience to
the Divine will, in other words to the law afterwards
to be given."* Now probably such were the thoughts
of men at the beginning; but this does not settle the
question of the Divine intention in the lawgiving. We
must distinguish between the Divine end of the law,
and the end which was present to the minds of the
instruments of revelation, e.g. Moses. From the point
of view of Divine teleology the Apostle's doctrine of
the law is unassailable. The ultimate result reveals
the initial Divine intention, so that we may say that
what God had in view from the first was the promise,
and that the law entered to prepare men for the re
ception of the promised blessing by a varied discipline,
to be a pedagogue, a gaoler, a tutor, and a rough hus
band, to make Christ and the era of grace, liberty, and
love welcome. The law was a lower stage in the de
velopment of humanity, preparing for a higher, in
presence of which it loses its rights, though the good
that was in it is taken up into the higher, and united
to the initial stage of the promise to which it stood
in opposition. But as for the thoughts of the Jewish

* " Paulinismus," p. 87.

7 8 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

legislator and his contemporaries and successors be
longing to the early generations of Israel's history,
they may have been considerably different from those
of Paul, who contemplated the matter in view of the
result. They looked with hope on an institution
which was destined to end in failure and despair. The
commandment which Paul found to be unto death,
they regarded as ordained unto life. They did not
see to the end of that which was to be abolished;
there was a veil upon their faces in reference to the
purpose of the law. It was only as time went on that
the veil began to be taken away by sorrowful experi
ences, and spirit-taught souls began to see that the
commandment was ordained, not so much for life and
blessedness, as for the knowledge of sin and misery ;
and that if any good was to come to Israel, it must
be by the supersession of the Sinaitic covenant through
a new covenant of grace, under which the law should
be written, not on tables of stone, but on the heart,
and all iniquity should be freely forgiven.

Keeping in view the slow and gradual manner in
which even inspired men attained to a comprehension
of the Divine purpose in the lawgiving, we should
not be surprised were there found not a little in the
Old Testament to bear out the impression that right
eousness in a legal sense is its burthen. We should
not even be surprised to find not a few traces of the
influence of a legal spirit in the literature of the Old
Covenant ; for what would these prove but this, that
the child's thoughts during the period of tutors and
governors were tinged by tlje discipline under which
he lived ? That such traces are to be found we shall
see hereafter. But when due allowance has been

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 79

made for these, it still remains true that the keynote
of the Old Testament is grace, and that the deepest
current of thought runs in the direction of a religion
of Trust in God as the Redeemer. If one wanted a
single text which should most faithfully indicate the
general drift of the Hebrew Scriptures, he might not
inaptly find it in the beautiful words of the later
Isaiah: "Doubtless Thou art our Father, though
Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge
us not : Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer
from everlasting is Thy name." So far is legal right
eousness from being the deepest thought of the Old
Testament writers, that the word righteousness itself
is often used by them, as by Paul, as a synonym for
grace, or for God's faithfulness in keeping His prom
ise ; as in the words of the hundred and third Psalm :
" The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to ever
lasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteous
ness unto children's children." Nor is this a solitary
text; similar utterances abound in the sacred books,
insomuch that some go the length of affirming that
the word righteousness is scarcely ever used in the
sense of retributive justice, but almost always is prac
tically synonymous with grace.

The idea of grace is very conspicuous in the pro
phetic literature. The God of the great prophets
Jeremiah, Ilzckicl, and the author of the later portions
of the book Qilsaialis prophecies, as also very specially
of Hosca, is characteristically a God who assumes a
gracious attitude towards His people, as the forgiver
of Israel's iniquities, the healer of her spiritual dis
eases, the founder of a new covenant which shall be
free from the faults adhering to the old one. And

go THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

along with this evangelic idea of God goes a certain
universalism, a recognition of the truth that Israel
has not a monopoly of God's grace, that its benefits
are open to all. The God who is the Redeemer of
Israel, addresses the whole world in these terms:
" Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth, for I am God, and there is none else." Israel
is regarded as elected to be a missionary people to
spread the knowledge of the true God among the
nations, and so to make her God the ground of her
claim to the gratitude and respect of mankind. This
is only what we should expect ; for a religion of
grace recognizes no claim in *a.ny man or people to
Divine favour as matter of right, and therefore con
sistently puts all men and nations on the same level.
Such a religion may not deny absolutely the preroga
tives of a particular people like Israel as an elect race ;
but it will make these prerogatives consist in being
the vehicle through which God conveys His grace to
all others, and so regard election as merely a method
by which God uses the few to bless the many.

These remarks remind us that in the Scripture ac
count of Abraham's history God is represented as ad
dressing to the Patriarch a call in which the prophetic
conception of God and of Israel's destiny is already
anticipated. That call contained the promise : " I
will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless
thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a
blessing: and in thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed." The words throughout are full of grace.
God's attitude is that of one who sovereignly and
freely blesses ; whether the blessing be temporal or
spiritual does not matter, the spirit is the same in

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. g i

either case. They are also pervaded by the spirit of
universalism. The God who is to bless Abraham and
his descendants means also to bless all nations ; means
to bless them by blessing Abraham and his offspring.
This holds true whether we retain the version of the
last clause of the above text, given in the English
Bible, or accept that proposed by critics : "In thce
shall all families of the earth bless themselves." The
nations could bless themselves in Israel only because
they knew and appreciated her state ; and those who
could do this would be themselves partakers of the
blessing.

If such a promise was really made to Abraham, if
he left his native abode with such a hope in his
breast, then it may be truly said that the revelation
recorded in the Bible from its very commencement
was a revelation of grace. In a sense it may be said
that the Bible begins with the call of Abraham, all
that goes before, the first eleven chapters of Genesis,
being a preface intended to convey a general idea of
the state of the world when the progenitor of Israel
came upon the scene. Yet here, at the very starting
point of the history in the long course of which the
gracious purpose of the self-revealing God was to be
slowly evolved, we find the nature of the purpose
made known with a degree of clearness approaching
that with which it shines in the pages of the prophets.
But naturalistic critics tell us that there is a very sim
ple explanation of this. The prophetic ideas of God
and of Israel's destiny arc in the history of Abraham,
because the prophets put them there. " From the
hands of prophetic revisers," says Pflciderer, " flow
those traits in the history of the origins of Israel which

82 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

throw back into the earliest foretime the Messianic
hopes and the thought of a universal purpose of grace,
which were both in reality mental achievements of the
later centuries. We include under these particularly
the treatment of the patriarchal age, and above all the
life of Abraham. On this territory of dawning fore-
history the prophetic narrator has operated with great
freedom."* The assumption underlying this sceptical
criticism is, that the rudimentary initial stage in a
process of religious development cannot possibly an
ticipate the features of a more advanced stage, but
must necessarily present the religious element in hu
man nature under the rudest form. A comparatively
pure monotheistic idea of God is wholly foreign to
this early stage. The development which ends in
ethical monotheism must start from fetish worship.
In like manner the idea of a universal religion cannot
possibly appear in the initial period. Universalism
can come only after particularism, the worship of tri
bal or national gods, has had its day. Now these po
sitions, so confidently laid down by naturalism, are by
no means so axiomatic as writers like Kuenen imagine.
On grounds of observation, e.g., and in the interests
of a purely scientific study of religion, it has been
questioned whether fetishism be not rather a degener
ate form of an antecedent purer religion than the
primitive form of religion from which all religious de
velopment starts.f The truth seems to be, that the
early form of all historical religions is not fetish wor
ship, but a comparatively pure, though unstable, mo-

* " Die Religion," vol. ii., pp. 337, 338.

f This is the view advocated by Max M tiller in his Hibbert Lect
ures, " On the Origin and Development of Religion."

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 83

notheism. The first thoughts of men on religion are
better than their second, and their last and best
thoughts are in a sense a return to their first. In ac
cordance with this view, the initial stage of a religion
may, without postulating any supernatural revelation,
contain in it in germinal form all that is to come out
of it. This law of development was exemplified in
the case of Christ, by the admission of even rational
istic critics like Dr. Baur. Why not also in the case
of Abraham, if he was the starting point of the de
velopment which culminated in the ethical monothe
ism and universalism of Hebrew prophecy? Why
should there not appear in him the blossom of which
the prophetic ideal is the ripe fruit ? Is it thought
tha^ he came at too early a period in the world's his
tory for this to be possible? But is it not the fact,
demonstrated by comparative philology, that at a still
earlier period the primitive Aryans worshipped the
one God under the name of Dyauspitar — Heaven-
Father. Why then should it seem impossible for
Abraham to have a comparatively pure idea of God?
Or is it the universalism of the Abrahamic creed that
seems too advanced for the time? It is a well-known
fact that a universal religion appeared in India some
six centuries before the Christian era; why should
not the dream at least of such religion appear still
earlier in Chaldea ? The idea of all nations being
bound together and blessed by one religious faith, ad
vanced and modern as it seems, is after all a simple
thought which might readily occur to devout minds
even in the grey dawn or childhood of the world's his
tory. Wherever God is conceived of as one, there
mankind also may be conceived of as one. The

84 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

ancient Aryans who looked up to heaven and said
" Father," must have looked on all men as brethren.
The instincts of human nature, even in savages, are
able to make the synthesis between one God and one
humanity. Hence Paul, in his address on Mar's hill
to Athenian polytheists, connects together the two
ideas of one God, maker of heaven and earth, and one
humanity made of one blood, evidently assuming that
the acceptance of the one idea would carry along with
it the acceptance of the other. These ideas, therefore,
cannot reasonably be regarded as too advanced for
Abraham, even regarding him as an ordinary man ;
and if we regard him as an exceptionally great man,
one of the world's epoch-making men, — and such ap
pear in all ages, — his capacity to entertain such
thoughts becomes still more credible. Students of
history recognise in Zoroaster a probable contempo
rary of Abraham, and regard him as one who played
among his people, the Persian Aryans, the important
role of a religious reformer, teaching them to believe
in one God ethically conceived as the patron of right
eousness, and maker of all good things in the world.*
If this view be well founded, then Zoroaster was one
of the world's great characters appearing in the morn
ing of human history. If the Bible picture of Abra
ham, — in which he is represented as the introducer of
a new pure religion, as a man who by faith lived in
the future and cherished the aspiration to be a bene
factor to the human race, — be even approximately
correct, then the Hebrew Patriarch is simply another
to be added to the select band of world-historical ini
tiators.

* Vide Bunsen, "God in History," vol. i., p. 276.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 85

But it is not necessary to ascribe so much origi
nality to Abraham in order to vindicate for the self-
manifestation of God in history, even at his early
epoch, the character of a revelation of a purpose of
grace. At no stage in the history of revelation is it
necessary to assume a full understanding or consci
ousness, on the part of the instruments of revelation,
of the purposes for which God was using them; and
least of all is this probable in the initial stage. It is
distinctly indicated in the New Testament that the
prophets did not fully understand the meaning of
their own prophecies; and we may well believe that
Abraham did not possess perfect insight into the sig
nificance of the impulses that were at work in his
soul. For the purposes of our argument we can afford
to admit that the prophets, or whoever wrote the
patriarchal history, give in their narrative the Divine
significance of the events in Abraham's life, as it lay
revealed to their view by the course of Israel's history,
rather than the meaning which these bore to Abra
ham's own mind. It is enough for our purpose if the
main outlines of the story be historically correct :
that Abraham left his native land in search of another
place of abode, that the migration proceeded in part
at least from religious motives, and that the wanderer,
sojourning in the strange land, had a deep-seated
presentiment and hope that from him should spring
a people destined to play a remarkable part in the
history of the world. Of the import of these events
in his life, and of the feelings connected with them,
Abraham himself might have a very dim and inade
quate idea. His departure from his native country
might be the result of an irresistible impulse, rather
5

86 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

than of a deliberate purpose ; the religious motive
might take the form, not of an altered view of God
distinctly formulated by deliberate reflection, but
rather of an undefinable dissatisfaction with prevalent
religious beliefs and practices ; the hope of founding
a nation peculiar in character and vocation, might be
nothing more in consciousness than a persistent pre
sentiment of which no account could be given, a sort
of fixed idea, for the cherishing of which a man
might be reckoned a madman or a sage, according as
the event fell out. If this were ascertained to be
Abraham's actual state of mind, then it might have
to be admitted that his life, as narrated in Genesis,
has undergone considerable colouring in the hands of
the historian. Still the residuum of fact would form
a sufficient basis for the revelation of a Divine inten
tion. In those facts one might see revealed a purpose
of God to separate this man from his own people and
to make him the 'progenitor of a new race which
should permanently occupy the land wherein he
found rest after his wanderings, and which should
be there an elect people, worshippers of the true
God, and destined eventually to become missionaries
of the true religion to the whole earth. It was just
such a Divine intention the author of the Book of
Genesis, call him a prophet if you will, saw in the
facts. From the point of view of such a Divine
intention he wrote the history, striking the keynote
in the very first sentence, which represents Jehovah as
saying to Abraham: " Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house,
unto a land that I will show thee : and I will make of
thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 8/

thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I
will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that
curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the
earth be blessed." This was what God said to Abra
ham, if not in so many words audible -to the ear, then
by the impulses which He awakened in the patriarch's
heart. This was what the history of Abraham said
to the prophet's own spirit. It was his way of read,
ing the story, the construction which his prophetic
insight taught him to put on the facts. And the
event showed that the construction was right. If
God be in history at all, the prophetic hypothesis is
verified. The Power who is at work in the world did
mean in the events of Abraham's life just what the
prophetic narrator says He meant. In that life God
revealed Himself as One having in view, as His end
in guiding the course of history, the religious well-
being of mankind, and adopting for that purpose the
method of election. The revelation lies in the events
themselves; the purpose served by the Bible narra
tive, beyond the mere recording of the facts, is to en
able us to see clearly the Divine intention, to see it
more clearly than we should have done, had we had
nothing more than a bald statement of the facts,
more clearly than the hero of the story himself saw it.
In the foregoing observations'! have admitted that
the prophetic narrative of Abraham's life puts more
meaning into that life than it had or could have to
Abraham. It is important to point out, however,
that the amount of light thrown on the Divine inten
tions is not greatly if at all in excess of what we might
expect in the initial stage of revelation. The narra
tive does not imply that Abraham possessed a per-

88 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION.

fectly adequate or pure idea of God, or a full knowl
edge as to the extent or manner of the blessing to be
conferred on him and his descendants, and through
them on the world. As respects the former, the name
for God in the patriarchal period, while expressive of
truth so far as it goes, comes far short of the concep
tion of God suggested by the crowning stage of reve
lation. It is El-shaddai, God Almighty.* It conveys
the idea that God is the Maker of the world, and at
the same time above the world, not to be confounded
with nature as in the Pagan religions, which practically
are but different forms of nature-worship. The name
thus expresses a most important truth ; no one can
realise how important till he has studied the religions
of the wrorld, and observed how completely God and
nature are identified, to the utter exclusion of all right
ideas of the relations of God and the world as Creator
and creature, Maker and made. In connection with
these studies we learn to appreciate at its due value
the revelation of God contained in the very first chap
ter of the Book of Genesis, which sets forth God as
the Creator of heaven and earth, independent of the
world, existing before it, bringing it into being by the
word of His power, and making man in His own im
age. Still this first revelation, important as it is, is
rudimentary in comparison with that made in after
ages when the purpose of grace was more unfolded.
It amounts to little more than a publication of the
truths of natural religion, a republication, we may
call it, if we conceive of man as having received a
primitive revelation of the simple elements of religion,

* Gen. xvii. i ; Exod. vi. 3.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 89

the light of which he afterwards lost. It tells us only
at most that God is One, that He is above the world,
that He made the world by His power, and that He
is a Being who, in His moral nature, in some respects
resembles man. Truths, these, not to be despised ;
nay, truths which serve for a foundation to those
which more especially form the revelation of grace.
Still they are nothing more than foundation ; they
but conduct us to the threshold of revelation proper.
The raison d'etre of revelation is not to teach us these
truths. If the Book which contains the record of rev-
elation gives to these truths a place in its pages, it is
because they are presuppositions which we must bring
with us to the study of the higher revelation. If the
place assigned to such truths appear larger than seems
due to subordinate matters, it is because men have
been slow to learn even the lower truths concerning
God, not to speak of the higher. That God is the
Creator, and that He is a moral Governor, the sacred
book asserts and reasserts, because even these truths
are extensively ignored, and because till these are laid
to heart it is hopeless to seek to gain recognition for
the highest idea of God as a Redeemer. The inculca
tion of the lower truths is a means to an ulterior end ;
they are not taught for their own sake.

Returning from this digression, I remark that the
patriarchal name for God shows that the patriarchs
in their theology were still little in advance of the
standing point of a purified natural religion. And
when we look with a thoughtful eye into Abraham's
history we find evidence that he still needed to be
raised above the influence of some of the superstitions
prevalent among the peoples who had not retained

0,0 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

the true God in their knowledge. I refer specially
here to what may legitimately be inferred from the
narrative relating to the sacrifice of Isaac. There
can be little doubt that that remarkable passage in
the patriarch's history stands in some relation to the
custom of human sacrifice, which was one of the most
characteristic features of pagan Semitic worship, and,
in the opinion of some writers, found its way into
Canaan from Babylon. We may assume that Abra
ham was familiar with the horrid practice ; and it is
every way likely that the knowledge he possessed sup
plied the needful fulcrum for the " temptation " to
which he was subjected. The fact that the votaries
of Baal or Moloch, the Divine Lord and King, were
ready to make their own children pass through the
fire in his honour, made it possible for Abraham to
entertain as a Divine suggestion or command the
thought of offering his son Isaac as a sacrifice in proof
of his devotion. Was it not due to his God that he
should show that he loved Him more than the dear
est object of affection, even though it should be an
only son through whom alone he could attain to the
fulfilment of his hope for the future ? If he was not
willing to make such a sacrifice, did he not come be
hind the idolaters from whom he had separated him
self, in the sincerity and intensity of his religious zeal ?
One could imagine such questions suggesting them
selves to the mind of a devout man placed in Abra
ham's circumstances, without any Divine communi
cation. Supernatural interposition was needed, not
so much to put the thought into Abraham's mind, as
to conduct him safely through the temptation which
it brought to him, and to lift him permanently above

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION.

91

the crude ideas of God which made such a temptation
possible. It is probably in this direction we should
look for a solution of the difficulties connected with
the moral aspects of the episode, which have so much
exercised the wits of apologists. In his able work,
" Ruling Ideas in Early Ages," the late Dr. Mozley
endeavours to vindicate the morality of the command
given to Abraham to sacrifice his son, by insisting
that it must be looked at in connection with the ideas
prevailing in that age respecting the absolute right of
fathers to dispose of the lives of their children. The
defence involves the admission that these ideas were
crude, and the morality associated with them very im
perfect ; and the plea is, that God, in making a reve
lation, was obliged to take men up at the point where
He found them, and so gradually lead them on to
higher things. The aim of the author in the whole
argument is, to show that God could do, or command
to be done, or approve when done, in one age what
neither ought to be done in a later, more advanced
time, when men's moral ideas had undergone a change
for the better, nor could even so much as be believed
on any evidence to be the objects of Divine approba
tion or the subjects of Divine commands. The line
of thought is valuable and fruitful, and might be ap
plied to other subjects, and to the same subjects in
other ways, besides those to which prominence is giv
en in the work referred to. What Dr. Mozley empha
sizes in the case of Abraham's offering of Isaac, is the
right of a parent, according to the ideas of the time,
to sacrifice the life of his son. It was then thought
that a man might dispose of a son as if he were a
thing, not a person ; therefore it was possible for Abra-

92

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

ham to believe on proper evidence that God required
this of him ; therefore also God might in fact require
it for a worthy end. But there is more than the right
to be thought of; there is the sense of obligation, the
idea in Abraham's mind that he ought to slay his son
as an act of religious homage, an idea present to his
thoughts antecedent to any Divine command, and
forming the natural basis for the whole experience to
be passed through. If we assume this idea to have
been in Abraham's mind, then we cannot only under
stand the possibility of the temptation, but can see
that a very definite special purpose was served beyond
the general one of trying his faith — that, viz., of de
livering the patriarch finally and completely from the
fascinating influence of surrounding superstitions, by
showing him that his God was one who desired indeed
to be loved supremely, with single-hearted devotion,
but who delighted not in sacrifices of blood. This
use of the experience was perfectly compatible with
the trial of faith which the narrative represents as its
chief purpose. That trial arose out of a conflict be
tween two duties — the duty, on the one hand, of of
fering up Isaac in sacrifice in obedience to a Divine
command, and the duty, on the other, of continuing
to believe firmly in the Divine promise. The trial re
mains the same, on any theory as to the way in which
Abraham came to be convinced that the former of
the two duties was incumbent on him. Dr. Mozley's
theory is, that conviction was produced by a direct
Divine command, recognisable as such by miraculous
accompaniments. The alternative theory is, that the
state of Abraham's mind in reference to religion was
such that conviction might come to him through the

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 93

ordinary action of his conscience. In either case it
might be said with truth that God spoke to him. It
is only a question as to the mode of speaking; as in
reference to the design of the communication, it is a
question whether God meant to teach one lesson only
or two — a general one, His unconditional power to
fulfil His promise, and a special one, the difference
between the true God and Baal in ethical character.
The latter was a lesson which it was worthy of the
God of revelation to teach, it was indeed a most im
portant contribution to the self-manifestation of God
as the God of grace. And it is not derogatory to the
character of Abraham to suppose that he needed the
lesson. To imagine him susceptible to the fascina
tions of Moloch worship, is not to make him " a fol
lower and disciple of the Canaanites."* It must be
borne in mind, that the very sincerity of the sojourn-
er in the land of Canaan, as a servant of God, would
tend in some ways to lay him open to the sinister in
fluence of surrounding superstitions. The practice
of human sacrifice was an expression in a perverted
form of the great truth that the Divine interest must
take precedence of every human interest. While re
garding with horror the manner in which effect was
given to the principle, the devout Hebrew could not
but feel respect for the earnestness which shrunk not
from the supreme test of subjection to its behests.
But if such was his feeling, we can easily sec the need
of some special discipline to enable him to separate
the spirit of devotion from the offensive form in which

* Dr. Mozley adduces it as an argument against the view given
above, that it does so degrade Abraham.
5*

94 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

it clothed itself in prevalent religious custom ; and no
better can be imagined than that described in the
record of his life.*

The foregoing observations go to show that Abra
ham's, idea of God stood in need of purification and
development. I now remark, that if his conception
of the Divine character was imperfect, his knowledge
of the Divine purpose, as judged by the record, was
by no means complete. He had a presentiment that
God was to bless his descendants, and through them
the world ; but he had but dim rudimentary ideas of
the nature of the blessing to be conferred. Material
things occupied a large place in his thoughts. He
left his native abode in quest of a land that God was
to show him ; and that his seed should inherit this
land was the great object of his hope. That a re
ligious element also entered into his conception of the
blessing, may be inferred from the fact that religion
was one of the springs out of which the migration
flowed. But we are not required by anything in the
narrative to suppose that Abraham's ideas of the
spiritual side of the promise were in advance of what
is to be looked for at the initial stage of revelation.
It was the patriarch's hope, doubtless, that his chil
dren would be sincere worshippers of the true God,
the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, and the
righteous Judge of the sons of men; and he might
also hope that through the people that should spring
from his loins other nations would be brought to the
knowledge of the same God, and thus be led to

* For some excellent remarks in the line of those offered in the
text, see Smyth's "Old Faiths in New Light," pp. 99-104.

THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION. 95

abandon their idols. Beyond this, however, his view'
did not greatly extend. The higher truths of revela
tion had not yet risen above the horizon.

Yet let us not imagine on this account that revela
tion had not yet begun to show itself in its distinctive
proper character as a revelation of grace. The
flower, though not the fruitage of grace appeared in
the patriarchal revelation. And as the flower is a
prophecy of the fruit, it. may be said that in the
flower Abraham saw unconsciously the fruit, Christ's
day, and rejoiced in it. There was grace in all God's
dealings with Abraham. It was an act of grace to
show him the falsity of the prevailing religion, and
to reveal to him the pure truth of natural religion,
the worship of God the Creator and Moral Governor.
It was a further act of grace to separate him from
his people, that he might forget old customs and, as
a stranger in a strange land, worship the true God.
There was grace also in the promise of a seed, and
of a land in which they should dwell as in a peculiar
sense a people of God. The covenant by which God
appropriated Abraham's seed as His people, and gave
Himself to them to be specially their God, was a
covenant of grace. The lesson on sacrifice was also
a remarkable manifestation of grace, for while it ne
gatively revealed the humanity of the Divine charac
ter, it positively revealed God's delight in self-sacri
fice, and thus brought to light possibilities of sacrifice
for God Himself, which one could hardly dare to re
gard even as possibilities until they had actually been
realised. The Divine oath uttered on the occasion,
as a passionate expression of the admiration awaken
ed by the sublime spectacle presented by the patri-

96 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF RE VELA TION.

arch offering up his son, is specially significant as
affording a glimpse into the inmost spirit of God.
Looking down on the sacrifice, God exclaims: " As I
live, this is a great heroic deed ; it shall not go unre
warded. Out of the son whom this man is willing
to part with shall spring a seed multitudinous as the
stars or the sand." He could swear by no greater,
therefore He sware by Himself; so, as the writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews finely points out, making
Himself a Mediator, or middle party between God
and Abraham. God swearing made Himself in con
descension inferior to God sworn by. That is, God,
in taking an oath, did a thing analogous to God be
coming man. The acts were kindred, being both acts
of condescension and love. In these two acts, as in
covenant-making, God stoops down from His majesty
to the weakness and want and low estate of man. In
covenant-making God made Himself a debtor to His
creatures, and gave them a right to claim what is in
reality a matter of favor. In taking an oath, God
submitted to indignity imposed by man's distrust,
and, instead of standing on His truth, put Himself
under oath, that there might be an end of doubt or
gainsaying. In becoming man, God condescended to
man's sin, and submitted to be as a Sinner that sin
ners might be delivered from moral evil. Grace ap
pears in all these acts in an ever ascending degree.

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

CHAPTER III.
THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

THE chief end of revelation being to make known
a purpose of grace in which all mankind were inter
ested, it might have been expected h priori, that the
revelation would be made at once, per sa/tuw,and by
miracle to all concerned. Such a purpose, one would
say, can brook no delay, but must be in haste to bless
its objects ; can be guilty of no partiality, but must
treat all with like favour; and must reach its full ac
complishment, not by a slow progress from lower to
higher degrees of blessing, but at a bound. The
method actually pursued was as unlike this imaginary
one as possible, and more in accordance with the
analogy of nature and ordinary Providence. Revela
tion took the form of an historical movement, subject
to the ordinary laws of historic development, and ex
hibiting the usual characteristics of movements sub
ject to these laws. The redemptive purpose of God
was not ushered into the world a full-grown fact ; it
evolved itself by a regular process of growth, and the
process was marked by three salient features: slow
movement, partial action, and advance to the perfect
from the more or less imperfect, not only in know
ledge, but also in morality. All these features may
be and have been made the occasion of objection to

I oo THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

the reality of a Divine revelation ; and it may be
worth while to consider how far they are compatible
with the idea of a revelation in general, and more
especially with the idea of a revelation of God as the
God of Grace. The present chapter shall be devoted
to the examination of this problem.

I begin the discussion with the general remark,
that it ought to raise no prejudice against the divinity
of an alleged revelation, that it assumes the form of
an historical movement. It is worthy of God to pro
ceed in this way. " It became Him for whom are all
things, and by whom are all things," in making a
special revelation, to act in accordance with the laws
which He observes in making a general revelation of
Himself as the Creator and Governor through nature
and ordinary Providence. Adherence to this method,
even in a supernatural revelation, ensures that this
higher self-manifestation shall bear a stamp of na
turalness, as opposed to the magical character that
must attach to all Divine action which stands in no
relation to the course of nature. A redemptive
process from which the element of time was elim
inated, would have been a thaumaturgical per
formance so utterly unlike the world we live in, where
all things are subject to the law of growth, that it
would have been hard for us, living in such a world,
to believe that it could be the work of the same God
who made and governs the universe. It would have
been a phenomenon of the same kind as had been
the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by lifting her
up and carrying her through the air to the promised
land as an eagle carries her young till they have
learned to fly. It so happens, indeed, that in the

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

101

song of Moses, that great historical achievement is
actually represented under this very figure: "As an
eagle stirrcth up her nest, "wrote the sacred poet," flut-
tcreth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings,
takcth them, bcarcth them on her wings : so the Lord
alone did lead^iim, and there was no strange god
with him ! "^ And in a high ideal sense the represen
tation is true. Yet it is only an ideal ; it is poetry,
in which all secondary ordinary causes are lost sight
of, and the Divine agency alone is recognised. Never
theless such second causes were not in reality ex
cluded. God led His people from Egypt to Palestine
like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron ; and
the process was of much longer duration than the
poetic figure implies. Nor did the work of deliver
ing Israel lose any of its divineness by being carried
on slowly and by human instrumentality. On the
contrary, it thereby only came to have a history full
of moral interest, and throwing much light on the
character of God. Had Israel been delivered in a
purely magical way, lifted up out of the land of bond
age and set down a few hours after in the land of
promise, it would certainly have been a stupendous
miracle ; yet it would have been a poor display of the
Divine character compared with that furnished by
the actual method. In the imaginary case we should
have seen only the Divine omnipotence manifested
for a moment ; in the actual case we behold a mani
festation of all the Divine attributes, power, wisdom,
patience, faithfulness, unwearied loving care — not a
momentary manifestation only, but one extending

* Dcut. xxxii. ii, 12.

IO2 THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

over a lengthened series of years, supplying material
for a history rich in pathetic stirring incident which
endures for aye, an imperishable monument to the
praise of Israel's God.

The naturalness of the way in which God redeemed
Israel, it thus appears, was far from being a fault. In
like manner the same characteristic is no fault in the
method pursued in the higher work of redemption,
whereof that of Israel in Egypt was in some respects
a type. The naturalness of that method is rather a
point in its favour, to be emphasized by the apologist
as far as the facts will allow. And we might go great
lengths in such an argument without exceeding the
limits of truth. The whole process of revelation
was so natural that it might easily seem on first view
to be nothing more. That it was something more,
that there was a supernatural element within the
-natural, we shall see hereafter; meantime the thing
to be noted is, how natural, how much like an ordi
nary historical movement, was the course of events
through which God revealed and brought to its con
summation His purpose of grace towards mankind.
In the first place, the drama of revelation begins at
the beginning, and, though it concerns the whole
human race, has to do at the starting with a single
individual. Such a commencement shows at once
how thoroughly historical the process is going to be,
for it is characteristic of great historical movements,
to begin with individuals and to expand gradually
from them as centres, or to grow up from them as
seeds, till they become at length world-wide pheno
mena. A revelation which begins with the call of
Abraham is evidently going to take the form of an

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. 1 03

organic evolution, passing by a slow secular process
through successive stages till it reach its final phase ;
from an individual man to a family, from a family to
a nation, from a nation to a representative Man in
whom a new beginning is made, and the universal
element for the first time clearly appears, and from
the representative Man to all the nations of the earth.
Surely a magnificent world-historical movement, ex
tending through the ages, worthy of the first cause
and last end of all, approving itself by its very
leisureliness to be the work of Him whose mode of
action is slow but sure, never hasting, yet never for
getting His purpose !

Yes, it may be objected, very sublime and very
God-like and God-worthy in some respects; but is the
delay involved in this method compatible with the
idea of Grace ? Doubtless it is God's way, as the
Governor of the world, to work after the fashion de
scribed. The moral order of the world, as even
pagan sages discerned, moves towards its end slowly
if surely. One day is with the Lord, as a Power
making for righteousness, as a thousand years, in
respect of the leisureliness of His action ; and a thou
sand years as one day, in respect of mindfulness of
His purpose. But ought not God, as a Gracious
Power to act in a different manner? Does not so
slow a movement as that which characterizes the
moral order of the world, exclude grace altogether?
Can we who believe in grace avail ourselves of this
feature of Divine action ; have we not adopted an
idea of God which is inconsistent with the fact-basis?

On a superficial view, this objection may appear
plausible ; but on reflection it is seen to be ground-

! 04 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

less. It does seem as if the slow process of nature
or ordinary Providence were too cold-blooded, so to
speak, for the warm temperament of Grace ; as if a
Divine Love sufficiently intense to put itself to the
trouble of interposing in human affairs for the accom
plishment of a beneficent design, would be unable to
restrain itself from hastening on with accelerated pace
towards fulfilment. On the hypothesis that God had
a gracious thought in His heart towards the human
race, as He is reported to have declared when He
summoned Abraham to leave his native land, how, we
are prone to ask, can we imagine him going about
the execution of his plan for the good of humanity
with such wearisome deliberation? Is the slowness
of the evolution not proof that the alleged purpose is
not a reality? But the sufficient answer to such ques
tions is, that Grace, however willing to move quickly,
must take its rate of progress from the nature of the
work it has on hand. To speak more definitely, it
must take the recipients of benefit along with it, and
move at a pace with which they can keep up. God
does not manifest Himself in grace merely in order
to make a display, but that those to whom He mani
fests Himself may get the good intended for them.
Now, it is very possible for love, by too great eager
ness to show itself in action, to defeat its own design
to bless its objects. A father, e.g., in his inordinate
affection for his child, may give him all good things
at once, unable to delay till the child have reached
the years of discretion, and so in effect curse instead
of blessing his offspring. How often does it happen
in this way that children get too much of a parent's
blessing ! Children, to be truly blessed, must be ed-

THE METHOD OF REVELATION. IO5

ucated for receiving, appreciating, and rightly using
the gifts of parental love ; and for this end, lapse of
time, patience, waiting, is indispensable. In like man
ner, Divine Love, however ardent, must be content
to move slowly, because men need to be trained by
faith and patience and moral discipline for the in
heritance of the promise. This is a familiar truth
with reference to the sanctification of the individual,
but it is equally true in reference to the redemption
of the race; nay, is much more so, for the moral
training of a race is a greatly more complicated affair
than that of an individual. It takes twenty years for
a child to arrive at manhood, and we ought not to
wonder if it take twenty centuries for the human
race to arrive at its majority, and to be prepared by
the discipline to which it has been subjected all that
time for appreciating the great characteristic privilege
of the Christian era, that of standing in a relation of
sonship to God. Nor does the long delay, though it
last for millenniums, make grace cease to be grace,
though it may tend to make its gracious character
less obvious. Grace submitting to delay is only love
consenting to be guided by wisdom. Only on the
assumption that this slow method of procedure left
in an unsaved state all who lived in the epoch of
preparation, could its gracious character be seriously
questioned. We shall sec further on that such an
assumption is groundless.

As little would the gracious character of the whole
process of revelation be compromised, if it should
appear that at certain stages in its course the actual
Divine manifestations wore an aspect almost of an
tagonism to grace, as for example in the lawgiving.

I O6 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

Paul has made this thought a commonplace by his
comparison of the law £o the tutors and governors
under which a child is placed till he arrive at his ma
jority. The truth of the statement becomes, if possi
ble, still clearer when we regard it in the light of our
Lord's parable concerning the law of growth in the
kingdom of God, as analogous to that of grain, pro
ducing first the blade, then the ear, then the full ripe
corn. In the kingdom of nature growth not only in
volves delay which exercises the patience of the hus
bandman, but it proceeds by well-marked stages, all
of which must be passed through ere it reach its con
summation in a crop of ripe grain. And one of these
stages, that of the green ear, is very unlike that of
maturity. We see this more clearly in the case of
fruit than in the case of grain. How unpalatable is
green fruit, with its sour juices setting the teeth on
edge ! Yet it is a stage on the way to the mellow
fruit of late autumn, whose sweet taste delights the
eater. The acidity is opposed to the sweetness, yet
it is a phase in the natural process of growth which
has sweetness for its goal and final cause. In like
manner Law may be opposed to Gospel, and yet be a
phase in a revelation which has grace for its guiding
idea and terminus. The law comes because it is good
in its season, good for the destined recipients of bless
ing. For grace must accommodate itself to the needs
of its object, and deal with him as he requires to be
dealt with at any given time. Accommodation is an
essential principle in the method of a revelation of
grace. The gracious revealer, while ever keeping in
view his ultimate design, must connect the particular
recipient with that design in a way suited to his whole

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA T1ON. \ 07

position. In accordance with this rule, after the
promise came the law. There was first the beautiful
blossom of the promise in the patriarchal time, then
the green fruit under the law, then the ripe fruit ap
peared with the advent of Christ full of grace and
truth. By the nature of the case the ripe fruit tarried
long; for the legal discipline which was designed to
prepare men for enjoying it demanded a lengthened
period within which to work out its effect. During
the lapse of that intermediate stage it might well
seem as if God had forgotten to be gracious. But in
truth He was only taking pains to insure that the
ripe fruit, when it came, should have a maximum of
sweetness to the human palate. The whole process
from beginning to end was long, very long; but it
issued in something well worth waiting for, which
could not have been so good had it come much soon
er, especially had it come without the intervention of
the legal green ear. It was well that the blade of
the promise came first, for men must know what they
have to wait for, at least dimly; and in representing
it as coming when it did, the Scriptures give a
thoroughly credible account, for when should the
blade appear if not at the beginning? Surely not
when the green ear is well advanced, as those in
effect say who make the promise to Abraham a mere
invention of the prophets. But the promise having
once been given, it was well also that men had to
bear a protracted discipline of law, that they might
be thoroughly weary of rules, and thoroughly drilled
in the exercise of their moral senses, and on both ac
counts glad to welcome the day-dawn of the Gospel
era bringing redemption and liberty.

! o8 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

The foregoing train of thought may suffice to re
move objections to the method of revelation based
on the long delay which it involved before the end
aimed at was reached. We may no\v, therefore, pro
ceed to notice the objections which maybe suggested
by the second feature incident to that method speci
fied at the commencement, viz., the partiality of Di
vine action in the earlier stages of revelation. The
self-revealing God proceeded by the way of election,
and had dealings first only with one individual, and
thereafter only with one nation. How strange this
exclusiveness, this seeming indifference to all the rest
of the world, on the hypothesis that the purpose of
grace really concerned all mankind ! Now, there is
certainly here a superficial antinomy requiring resolu
tion, and the resolution is to be found in a correct
conception of the idea of election and of what it in
volves. Election, then, does not signify a limitation
of Divine sympathy to all intents and purposes to
the elect, or a monopoly of Divine favour enjoyed by
the latter. The election of Abraham and of Israel
did not imply that all the rest of mankind were left
without the pale of God's gracious purpose, and
could share in none of its benefits, temporal or
eternal. Some members of the elect race might
think it did ; all of them would be tempted so to
think, for God's purpose that the Gentiles should be
fellow-heirs was hid from them, hid in God, as the
Apostle Paul says,* and they might readily mistake a
relative, temporary, and economical preference for an
absolute, eternal, and intrinsic one. But the mystery,

* Eph. iii. 9.

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. \ 09

though hid in God, was not hid from Him, nor did it
remain at any time wholly dormant or inoperative in
the Divine mind. The election was simply a method
of procedure adopted by God in His wisdom, by
which He designed to fit the few for blessing the
many, one for blessing all. That being so, the apolo
gist's task, in addressing himself to the study of the
religious history of mankind, would be to inquire
what a gracious purpose, having in view the whole
world, but proceeding by the method of election,
would lead us to expect regarding the outside nations
and their religious condition, and then to consider
how far the facts correspond to theoretical expecta
tions, and how far therefore the hypothesis of a reve
lation of grace so conducted is historically verified.
This is the attitude which it becomes the apologist,
believing in such a revelation, to take up in studying
the phenomena of ethnic religion. To one occupy
ing this attitude, that study will prove a much more
genial and hopeful one than it can possibly be to
those who imagine that the principle of election ne
cessarily implies, with reference to the Gentiles, abso
lute ignorance of God and utter exclusion from all
the benefits of salvation.

It is impossible here to launch out upon such an
extensive inquiry as I have just sketched ; but I may
offer a few cursory remarks on the question, what the
idea of revelation advocated in this volume would
lead us to expect as to the religious condition of the
peoples outside the pale of the chosen race. In the
first place, then, from the universality of the Divine
purpose, it might be confidently inferred that the
heathen nations were all along the object of God's
6

1 10 THE METHOD OF RE VELA TION.

benignant compassionate regard. The " mystery hid
in God " must have guided the whole course of Divine
Providence as the Ruler of the nations ; the purpose
of grace, universal in its scope, must all through the
ages have influenced the Divine dealings with the
children of men. It would not therefore surprise us
if, in prosecuting our studies in ethnic religion, we
found reason to think that God, while revealing Him
self specially and systematically to the people of the
election, did not altogether hide Himself from other
peoples, but gave them as much light as might suffice
to make the darkness of their night tolerable till the
dawn should arrive ; raising up now and then, here
and there, men of comparatively pure, vigorous,
moral sentiments, and clear religious intuitions, whose
wise thoughts and worthy life should be as starlight
amid the gloom of night. Nor should we think it
necessary in the interests of revealed religion to dis
parage these prophets of paganism. On the contrary,
we should gladly hail the lights of pagan religions,
both because of the guidance which they gave to the
peoples sitting in darkness, and likewise because of
the help which they yield to ourselves, as an aid to
faith in revelation. For sych an aid they do really
supply. To be convinced of this, we have but to ask
ourselves what inference might naturally be drawn
were the night of paganism absolutely unrelieved by
the presence of spiritual light. Would there not
then be room for doubt whether God had a purpose
of grace towards the nations? How reconcile the
existence of such a purpose with the total neglect of
its objects, the utter abandonment of them to dark
ness and misery? That a beneficent being should

THE ME TIIOD OF RE VELA TION, j { r

cherish a gracious purpose, and for a time not execute
it fully, is conceivable; but one would certainly ex
pect to find the objects of the purpose treated all
along in a manner that was congruous to the purpose,
and conveyed hints at least of the ultimate fulfilment.
But on the other hand, the method of election
having been adopted for realizing the universal design
of Divine grace, we should be prepared to find traces
of marked inferiority in the pagan religions as com
pared with the religion of the elect people. The
method implies that the elect people must be sub
jected to a special discipline in an isolated state, in
order to become eventually a source of blessing to
the world ; and that again implies that the people
who do not get the benefit of that discipline will
thereby be put at a great disadvantage, and be, in
comparison to the privileged race, as a street Arab to
a carefully trained boy. We should expect to find
on the side of Israel, as compared with the rest of
the world, traces of the advantages resulting from a
carefully conducted moral and religious education.
If such traces were not forthcoming, we might very
legitimately doubt either the reality of the election
or its utility and necessity. And it is not difficult to
conjecture of what nature the traces must be. If
the election was real and requisite, then it will ap
pear on inquiry that it is very difficult for men left to
their own resources to find out God, still more diffi
cult to retain Him in their knowledge, and to live up
to their knowledge, and to make steady advances in
Divine knowledge. Evidences will be forthcoming
that the tendency of ethnic religion is not upwards,
but downwards; not to steady progress, but to de-

1 1 2 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

generacy. On the other hand, a reverse tendency
ought to be observable in the religion of the elect
people. The path of revelation within the favoured
circle ought to be as the shining light, which shineth
more and more unto the perfect day. If the facts
should turn out to be in accordance with these anti
cipations, and students of comparative religion affirm
that they are, then the hypothesis of an election will
be verified.

But, once more, while the fact of the election leads
us to expect traces of the evil resulting from want of
special religious training in the history of ethnic relig
ion, the purpose of the election would lead us to infer
that the heathen nations would not be altogether
without the benefit of a Divine education. The
election was meant to prepare Israel for giving to the
nations the benefit of the true religion. But that
preparation would be to a certain extent fruitless, un
less the nations on their side were prepared for receiv
ing the benefit. Therefore, just because there was
an election, we may infer that there must have been
a providential guidance of the world's history in all
departments of human affairs, in religion, philosophy,
science, art, war, commerce, meant to prepare the
world for receiving and making the most of the bene
fit when the elect people was ready to give it. In
other words, the Pauline idea of a " fulness of the
time" must have its truth, not merely in reference to
the Jewish people, but in reference to the world at
large. As is well known, various attempts have been
made in recent years to give to this magnificent
apologetic idea of the Apostle a catholic scope, and
to use his words as a compendious formula for the

THE ME TIIOD OF RE VELA TION. \ \ 3

whole religious history of mankind ; the attraction
of the phrase to philosophic minds lying in this, that
it enables them to recognise the relative truth and
worth of all the great religions of the world, while
regarding Christianity as the absolute religion, the
consummation of the great process of man's religious
development. Hegel, e.g., represents all the princi
pal forms of religion as determined by the Idea of
religion, as forms which could not but appear, as ap
pearing in no casual order, and as together constitut
ing a process which in the time fixed by the Everlast
ing Reason and Wisdom of God, culminated in the
Christian religion ; that is to say, the religion in which
God is perfectly manifested as Spirit, therefore the
absolute, final, perennial religion. It is a fascinating
conception of the world's religious history, and it is
not surprising that the great philosopher concludes
the introductory sketch of his " Religions-philoso
phic " by the remark : " This course of religion is the
true theodicy ; it shows all products of the spirit,
every form of its self-knowledge, as necessary, be
cause the spirit is living, active, and has the impulse
to pass through the whole series of its appearances to
the consciousness of itself."* A similar conception
of the world's religious history pervades the work of
Bunsen, " God in History," and the essay of Bishop
Temple on the education of the world, in " Essays
and Reviews." Bunsen regards the consciousness
which man has of God,— in one word, religion, — as
the constant motive force in the history of nations ;
and, believing as he docs in a steady onward progress

*" Religions-philosophic," vol. i., p. 44.

1 14 THE METHOD OF RE VELA TION.

in that history, he believes also in a progress in men's
religious ideas from lower to higher forms, until they
reach in Christianity their fulfilment. Temple con
ceives of the human race as " a colossal man, whose
life reaches from the creation to the day of judg
ment," " passing through stages answering to those
of any ordinary man, — childhood, youth, manhood,
— and undergoing a training adapted in its course to
those successive stages — in his childhood, subject to
a discipline of positive rules ; in his youth, delivered
to the influence of models ; and in full age, left to his
own discretion." First come rules, then examples,
then principles. First comes the law, then the Son
of Man, then the gift of the Spirit. This view is a
commonplace so far as it applies to the Hebrew race ;
the peculiarity of the essay is the application of the
theory to the Gentile races. " The natural religions,
— shadows projected by the spiritual light within,—
were all in reality systems of law given also by
God, though not given by revelation, but by the
working of nature, and consequently so distorted
and adulterated that in lapse of time the divine
element in them had almost perished. The poeti
cal gods of Greece, the legendary gods of Rome,
the animal worship of Egypt, the sun worship of the
East, all accompanied by systems of law and civil
government springing from the same sources as them
selves, namely, the character and temper of the sev
eral nations, were the means of educating these peo
ples to similar purposes in the economy of Providence
to that for which the Hebrews were destined." I am
not aware that any objection on the score of principle
can be taken to these fine schemes. So long as the

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. \ \ 5

supremacy of Christianity as the great goal to which
the history of the world was tending is recognised,
and all the other religions of the world are embraced
under the category of preparation, the believer in rev
elation may rest content. He may even receive pos
itive gratification from speculations which tend to
confirm the true conception of revelation, as the evo
lution of a purpose of grace in which all mankind had
an interest. At the same time, it is well not to allow
our minds to be too much dazzled by such magnificent
generalizations, and for this purpose to remember
that they are open to a twofold criticism. In the
first place, such grand schemes look very well on pa
per, but it may fairly be questioned whether they can
be worked out, without extensive manipulation of
historical facts. Then, secondly, the notion of prep
aration does not necessarily imply steady progress on
wards from one degree of religious development to
another, all the stages being good in their own meas
ure, time, and place, till the last and highest degree
is reached. We might conceive of the ethnic religions
as being a preparation for Christianity in this sense,
that they were an exhaustive list of experiments on
man's part to find out God, which were appointed to
be made that men might be thereby made ready to
welcome the light from above, through the conscious
ness of the fruitfulness of their own search. Paul re
gards the law given to Israel as a vain experiment
that had to be made, that the Jewish people might
gladly receive Christ when He came full of grace and
truth. Might not all the religions of the world be
more or less experiments of that kind ? It would not
follow that there was no Providence presiding over

1 1 6 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

the world's religious history. It would only follow
that God had been for a season suffering all nations
to walk in their own ways, while not leaving Himself
without witness, but doing them good, giving them
rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, the things they
mainly sought after, filling their hearts with food and
gladness. At the same time the apologist has no in
terest in dogmatically asserting that the preparation
of the Gentiles for Christianity must be of this purely
negative sort. It might, we should almost expect
that it would, consist, not in mere fruitless experi
ments ending in despair, and in longings like those of
Plato for light from above, but also in anticipations of
truth, in ideas spiritually of kin to those of Hebrew
psalmists and prophets and sages, scattered rays of
light emanating from Him who is the Light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world.*

If the facts of the world's religious history at all
correspond to these a priori inferences from the idea
of revelation, it is evident that we have no reason to
take a despairing view of the spiritual state of the
pagan nations on account of their comparative igno
rance of the true God, and of His gracious will toward
men. If so, then a fortiori we need have no anxiety
as to the salvability of those belonging to the chosen
race who lived at the early stage of revelation, because
of a similar though not so dense ignorance. That the
knowledge possessed by such in the primitive ages
was very scanty, and the light very dim, we must ad
mit ; to assert the contrary, is simply to deny the his-

* A view closely allied to this is worked out in a most interesting
manner by Dr. Matheson, in his Baird Lectures on "The Natural
Elements of Revealed Theology."

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. j } 7

torical character of revelation. The knowledge of
God and of His will possessed by Abraham, for ex
ample, was to that of men living in the Christian era
but as the germ to the full-grown organism, or as the
acorn to the oak. He knew God as a gracious God,
but He did not know what God in His grace was go
ing to do. Nor was such knowledge needful. It is
the knowledge of God's spirit, not the knowledge of
all that is in God's mind, that is saving. The older
dogmatists were of a different opinion, and strove to
make out for the earlier recipients of revelation a
knowledge of God's plans and purposes little less com
plete than that possessed by those who live in the era
of grace. This view is not only wide of the truth as
a matter of fact, but opposed to the apologetic inter
est of the faith, as rendering it easy for unbelievers to
raise formidable objections. Assuming that explicit
acquaintance with the scheme of salvation is necessary
to salvation, it virtually asserts that all the heathen
are lost, and that members of the elect race were saved
only by having vouchsafed to them a knowledge de
nied to all the rest of the world. The one assertion
lays the position of believers open to such assaults as
that of Rousseau, when he asked if it were credible
that God would confine communications necessary to
salvation to so few, and if a God who commences by
choosing one people and proscribing the rest of the
human race can be the common Father of men.* The
other assertion is open to the obvious objection that
it does not seem in accordance with the facts as re
corded in Scripture. For, as Reimarus pointed out,

* Vide " The Confession of the Savoyard Vicar," in Emile.
6*

I i g THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

the Divine communications to Abraham did not refer
to such vital matters as the Atonement and the life
to come, but to much more worldly matters, such as
the birth of children and the possession of a particular
country. The actual history of Abraham is indeed
very hard to understand on any doctrinaire theory of
revelation, whether it be the old orthodox one, or
such a view as that of Mr. Arnold, which makes the
didactic significance of the Bible consist in the reitera
ted proclamation of the immense importance of right
eousness. If belief in doctrines be so essential to sal
vation, it is hard to see why herds and flocks, sons
and lands are so much more prominent than doctrines
in Abraham's life. In like manner, it is hard to ex
plain the prominence of these secularities on the as
sumption made by Mr. Arnold, that " Probably the
life of Abraham, the friend of God, however imper
fectly the Bible traditions by themselves convey it to
us, was a decisive step forwards in the development
of these ideas of righteousness. "*x The author of
" Literature and Dogma" obviously feels that from
his point of view the life of Abraham has been very
unskilfully written. No wonder, for surely a writer
sharing Mr. Arnold's views would have given much
more prominence to Abraham's lessons in righteous
ness, and less to those material matters that occupy
the foreground of the picture. No theory fits in to
the facts as they are recorded, except that which
makes revelation consist in the historical evolution of
a gracious purpose, and which makes salvation depend,
not on understanding what is to be the issue and out-

" Literature and Dogma," p. 31.

THE ME TIIOD OF RE VELA TION. \ 19

come of the evolutionary process, but on the fact of
the gracious purpose being in God's mind. Then we
can understand the prominence given to such an ap
parent triviality as the birth of an heir, for that is a
necessary first step in the process of development.
Then also we can understand the scanty amount of
doctrinal instruction communicated to Abraham, such
not being indispensable to salvation. Then, once
more, we know what to say to Rousseau when he com
plains of the proscription of the whole human race,
Israel excepted. There was no proscription in the
case ; election does not mean proscription, but is a
method by which one is used to bless the many. And
God does not need to wait till the method has been
fully developed before He can do good to the many.
If His grace can reach the members of the chosen
race, though their knowledge of His purposes be small,
it can also reach those without, though their know
ledge be still less. It may indeed be objected, that
on this genial and hopeful view of the compatibility
of salvation with much ignorance, knowledge seems
wholly unnecessary, and the revelation of the mystery
of grace altogether superfluous. But the objection is
easily met. In the first place, no one can rationally
pretend that the influence of God's gracious thoughts
unknown can by any possibility be equal to the in
fluence of these thoughts known. But more especial
ly it is to be borne in mind that gracious thoughts
never revealed are not gracious thoughts at all. It is
essential to the being of grace or love that it manifest
itself. Love unrcvcalcd is love unreal. The time
and the manner of revelation arc matters of secondary
importance, affairs of method to be determined by

120

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

love taking counsel with wisdom ; but revelation on
some method there must be, if there be indeed a gra
cious purpose hid in God's bosom.

Defective knowledge of God's gracious intentions
in the early period of revelation thus appears to be
by no means an insuperable objection to the method
adopted in making the revelation. The difficulties,
however, arising out of the moral defectiveness
characteristic of the same period, may appear more
serious. These difficulties present themselves to our
view more or less throughout the whole Old Testa
ment epoch, the age of preparation, and may be
divided into four classes. There are those connected
with the defective morality of the agents or recipients
of revelation ; those arising out of actions represented
as being sanctioned and commanded by God ; those
connected with rudimentary legislation ; and finally,
those presented in the traces of a legal spirit in the
Old Testament literature, strongly contrasting with
the evangelic spirit characteristic of the New Testa
ment. To attempt a discussion of all the topics
coming under these several heads, would carry us far
beyond our limits. I must therefore confine myself
to a few selected points which may suffice to illus
trate the bearings of the question.

T\vo general remarks may be premised, bearing on
the whole subject. The first is, that it should not
surprise us if, in the course of a Divine revelation,
the morally perfect should be preceded by the
morally imperfect. It is enough if the perfect do
at length come, and if throughout there be a per
ceptible progress towards the perfect as the goal. If
it should be found that such is the character of

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. 1 2 1

the alleged revelation recorded in the Scriptures,—
a steady progress towards an ethical ideal eventually
realised, — \ve should then have no hesitation on the
score of defect in the early stages in recognising such
a reputed revelation as indeed divine. Revelation
in that case, on its ethical side, as a moral education
of the human race, would be in analogy with the
sanctification of the individual, which is not a mo
mentary magical act, but a gradual work which
advances slowly from stage to stage till the ripe
fruit of Christian maturity at length appear. The
fact to be accentuated in connection with such a
revelation is, not the defect of preparatory stages, but
the upward progressive tendency of the movement.
The marks of its divineness are the ideal reached at
the end, and the constant advance towards the ideal.
Neither of these belongs to the order of nature. Not
the ideal ; for all admit that the character of Christ
and the ethical standard set up in His teaching and
example reach a preternatural pitch of perfection.
Not the steady progress towards the ideal ; for such
an advance is nowhere else exemplified, and least
of all among the Semitic races to which the people
of revelation belonged. The tendency of man, as
revealed in the history of nations, has ever been
towards moral degeneracy, both in theory and in
conduct ; and this tendency, as is well known to
students, was to an exceptional extent exemplified
in the religious history of the pagan Semites. The
facts in evidence can be gathered from the pages
of the Hebrew Scriptures, as can also the proofs of
an ever-increasing purity in the moral ideas within
the pale of the chosen people ; and when the two

! 2 2 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

classes of facts are placed side by side one cannot
help asking the question, Whence this striking differ
ence? The answer of faith is, that the difference is
due, not to the natural genius of the Hebrew race,
but to the supernatural action of God. Does it not
seem a rational answer ?

But can we introduce God as an agent in the
moral education of Israel without compromising His
perfection by making Him responsible for, or at
least bringing Him into dishonouring contact with,
the crude moralities of the earlier stages of the
pedagogic process? The answer we give to this
question will depend on the idea we form of Divine
perfection ; and the second observation I wish to
make is, that we ought not to regard God's per
fection from the Pharisaic view-point of mere ma
jesty or negative holiness, but from the Christian
view-point of gracious condescension and love. This
is a reflection much needing to be laid to heart, not
only by unbelievers, but also by believers in revela
tion. For it is the fact that the idea of God en
tertained by many believers is largely tinged with
Pharisaism. The Divine perfection, what is God-
worthy, is judged of by reference, not to the idea
of grace, but rather to that of exaltedness above
the \vorld. The habit of so judging reveals itself
variously; by a priori inferences as to the literary,
characteristics of the Bible, viewed as a book pro
duced by Divine authorship, not less than by the
manner in which the contents of the sacred volume
are interpreted. God's book must be free from
everything that would be regarded as a defect in a
book of merely human authorship ; and if in any

THE ME TIIOD OF RE VELA TION. \ 33

part of the book a sentiment appears which seems
incompatible with God's holiness, it must be carefully
explained away. Such zealous guardianship of God's
literary and moral reputation is on a par with that
exercised by Job's friends over God's character as
the moral Governor, or by the censors of Jesus over
His dignity when they blamed Him for associating
with publicans and sinners. It is a service for which
God does not thank them, because it is in His sight
no service at all, but only a folly based on ignorance
of His character and betraying His cause into the
hands of its enemies. To all such self-elected
guardians of His holiness and majesty God says:
" Suffer Me to condescend to man's need. I am not
the Being ye take Me for. My first concern is, not
to uphold My dignity, but; to communicate the bless
ings of My grace ; and for this purpose I am willing
to stoop to whatever is necessary to bring Myself
into living connection with those whom I would
bless, so that they may indeed receive the benefit."
Only a God of whose inmost heart such words were
a true reflection would make a revelation of Himself
to man ; only when we so conceive of God can we
understand, appreciate, and be benefited by the
revelation which He has actually made.

Passing now to speak of the different classes of
moral difficulties, it is easy to see the bearings of the
preceding observations concerning the Divine per
fection on the supposed injury done thereto by con
tact with the moral crudity of the early recipients of
revelation. The objections of Reimarus on this score
were adverted to in the first Chapter; and that such
objections are not yet out of date appears from the

! 24 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

style in which the same topic is treated in such a
work as " The Bible for Young People." It is an
offence to the authors of this book, that the wealth
obtained by Jacob through cheating is called a bless
ing of God, and still more that the birthright is sup
posed to be conferred upon him by the Divine will,
though it was obtained at first by a disgraceful ad
vantage taken of a thoughtless brother, and secured
afterwards by a still more disgraceful fraud practised
on an aged father. The occurrence of such gross
representations in the story of the patriarch's life is
accounted for somewhat as scholars are wont to
account for the immoralities in Greek mythology,
viz., by seeing in them traces of an early nature wor
ship. "A nature god is not a morally good being.
And so it was possible for a man to attribute base
actions to his god and yet be religious; to be zealous
for his honour, and ready to sacrifice himself to him
if need were, and yet at the same time to be of a
very low moral type."* The character of Jacob, as
depicted in the narrative, is certainly bad enough, and
it is not our part to extenuate its baseness. In one
respect, indeed, our interest as apologists rather lies in
the opposite direction, of making the patriarch's faults
appear as glaring as possible. For the more glaring,
the more like the ancient period they belong to, the
less likely they are to be the mere invention of a
prophetic narrator, living in an age when higher ideas
of morality prevailed. The crude morality befits and
bespeaks an early time, when the process of revela
tion was as yet only commencing. But the question

* Vol. i., p. 247.

THE ME TIIOD OF RE VELA TIQN.

125

is, Could God have close relations with such a morally
defective person as Jacob, such a relation as is im
plied in his being the elected heir of the blessing?
Now, in justification of an affirmative answer to this
question, we might insist on the fact that such men
as Jacob, in spite of their defective character, are
often the objects of Providential preference, succeed
ing in life when men of Esau-like spirit, generous,
impulsive, thoughtless, fail. And we might further
maintain that such preference was in accordance
with the dictates of moral reason, inasmuch as Jacob,
with all his grave faults, stood higher in the scale of
being than Esau, tested by the principle that every
man who exercises reflection and forethought, and
regulates his life by an aim worthy of a human
being, is superior to one who is the creature of im
pulse and appetite. Judged by this standard, it
might be truly alleged that Jacob, though far less
amiable, was more moral than Esau. We might say
that, granting him to be a very mean man, still he
was a man, while his brother was only a generous and
likable animal. Then we might see in the election
of Jacob, in preference to Esau, to the inheritance of
blessing, simply the Divine endorsement of this com
parative estimate. And if we did adopt this view,
we should not be guilty of nature worship; that is to
say, of believing in a god who is indifferent to moral
distinctions; for the view in question docs not im
ply either Divine approbation of Jacob's faults or
indifference to them, but simply a preference of him,
as on the whole, all things considered, the better
man — better absolutely, and better for the purpose
of the election which was to separate a people from

1 26 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

the rest of the world unto a high vocation. This
purpose could best be served by those who were
capable of appreciating the calling of God and the
destiny of Israel, and it might safely be affirmed that
a man like Jacob, however far below Abraham he
might fall in respect to such capacity, was certainly
much superior to a man of the Esau type.

There is some force, I think, in the foregoing line
of thought ; and yet I am not disposed to lay chief
stress on it, but prefer rather to fall back on the cate
gory of gracej as that best fitted to help us through
the difficulties of the patriarchal history. What we
observe in the story of a Jacob, as in the case of any
other morally defective Old Testament character, is
just what we see in the Gospel records of Christ's
ministry — the holy One in gracious love becoming
the Friend of the sinful. In neither case was there
indifference to moral evil, though in both such has
been imputed by men of Pharisaic spirit. There
was simply fearless contact with the morally culpable
on the part of a gracious Being who had a higher
end in view than merely to preserve His own holiness
intact, even to make the sinful partaker of His holi
ness. That God had this end in view in His dealings
with Jacob we ought not to doubt, any more than we
doubt the motive of Jesus in going to be guest with
men that were sinners. God meant to make Jacob
better than He found him, and took him in hand to
subject him to a moral discipline that should event
uate in a nature purified and ennobled. And the
history seems to supply us with evidence that the
disciplinary process reached its consummation, in
that suggestive incident of the Patriarch wrestling

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. \ 27

with the angel, resulting in the change of his name
from Jacob to Israel. A supplanter transformed into
a Prince or Soldier of God, is a result worth taking
pains for. Well might the God of grace have to do
with one chargeable with grave vices of nature and
faults in conduct, if the issue of His dealings was to
be such a spiritual change! With such a possibility
in view, we may even imagine the Divine Being
selecting as the subject of His gracious influence one
distinguished among his fellows, not for virtue, but
for evil proclivities and habits. So Christ sought out
the chief of sinners, hoping to find in them the most
devoted disciples, basing His calculations on the
principle : To whom much is forgiven, the same
loveth much.

Of all the cases belonging to the second class of
difficulties, that, viz., of questionable actions sanc
tioned or commanded by God, none is more perplex
ing on the score of justice than the wholesale de
struction of the Canaanitish tribes. This instance of
rude morality has, moreover, a further claim to our
special attention on the ground of its peculiarly close
connection with the question as to the chief end of
revelation and the means adopted for its attainment.
For it appears, on first view, as if in this case the end
was sacrificed to the means, and the catholic purpose
of grace compromised by the method of election.
God, ex hypothesis has it in view to bless all the
nations of the earth, and He chooses a particular
people to be trained for being the vehicle of blessing;
and here we see Him proposing to destroy a whole
group of nations to make room for the chosen race.
Could the God of grace give any countenance to so

1 2 8 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

ruthless a proceeding? Could a god who was capa
ble of such flagrant partiality cherish so humane and
benevolent intentions as we have ascribed to the
God of revelation? Is there not here some justifica
tion for the Gnostic doctrine, that the God of the
Old Testament and the God proclaimed by Jesus
Christ are entirely different beings, possessing moral
attributes utterly incompatible? That the people of
Israel did wage a war of extermination against the
Canaanites, one can easily believe, for it was the fash
ion of the time to conduct war in such a barbarous
manner. That they found it possible to persuade
themselves that God desired them to wage such a war,
is also easy to understand ; for, as Dr. Mozley has
pointed out, the ruling ideas in those ancient ages
concerning justice were such that men could regard
as a divinely appointed duty what we now could not
believe to be our duty, though miracles were wrought
to persuade us it was. The sense of justice was then
a blind passion, which made no distinction between
the guilty and the innocent who were in any way
connected with them ; therefore it would hardly
require miracles to persuade the invaders of Pales
tine that, if the inhabitants of the land were de
serving of punishment for prevailing iniquity, they
might be devoted to indiscriminate destruction. But
the question is, How could the God of absolute
justice, and still more the God of grace, be in any
way a party to such a butchery ? The question is
one to which it is not easy to return an answer com
pletely satisfactory; but before adverse judgment is
pronounced, it is necessary to bear in mind all that
Scripture says on the subject. The Scripture repre-

THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 129

scntation is to the effect that while God had destined
the descendants of Abraham to inherit the land of
Canaan, yet He delayed the fulfilment of the promise
for this reason, among others, that the old inhabitants
might not be dispossessed or destroyed before their
wickedness had reached such a pitch that their de
struction would be felt to be a just doom. According
to the narrative in Genesis, intimation of this policy
was made to Abraham himself, the Lord informing
the Patriarch that his descendants should not gain
possession of Canaan till four hundred years had
elapsed, because the iniquity of the Amoritc was not
yet full. This intimation revealed the same solici
tude to appear the righteous Ruler which afterwards
manifested itself in connection with the destruction
of Sodom. The Lord said, 4< Because the cry of
Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their
sin is very grievous ; I will go down now, and see
whether they have done altogether according to the
cry of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will
know " ; and He was willing to spare Sodom if so
much as ten good men were found in it. And the
treatment of the two messengers in Sodom on the
eve of the overthow, which was such that it were a
shame even to speak of it, is carefully recorded, as if
for the express purpose of preparing all readers for
sympathizing with the deed of vengeance. And that
story in the iQth chapter of Genesis explains what
is meant by the iniquity of the Amoritc. When the
whole people of Canaan had become as Sodom in
her fulness of bread, pride, and abundance of idleness,
given up to infamous and unmentionable licentious
ness, at the period of the overthrow, then her iniquity

130

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

would be full, and then it might well appear an act
of charity to humanity at large to spue her out of the
land, and to give the country to a people that would
make a better use of it. Such is the account given
of the Divine procedure in the Book of Leviticus :
" Defile not yourselves in any of these things (un
natural vices previously mentioned), for in all these
the nations are defiled which I cast out before you :
and the land is defiled : therefore I do visit the in
iquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth
out her inhabitants." Here is no partiality of a
merely national God befriending His worshippers at
the expense of others, without regard to justice ; here,
rather, is a Power making for righteousness and
against iniquity ; yea, a Power acting with a benefi
cent regard to the good of humanity, burying a
putrefying carcase out of sight lest it should taint
the air. Here is the Proprietor of the whole earth
taking a particular section of it out of the hands of
cumberers of the ground and giving it to those who
will occupy it to the general advantage ; yet acting
patiently, giving to the perverse space for repentance,
as if loath to come to extremities. Such is the God
shown to view in this stern chapter in Israel's history;
and it is the same picture in deed as that exhibited
in words in the familiar text : " The Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abun
dant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands (of generations), forgiving iniquity, trans
gression, and sin, and that will by no means clear;
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
and upon the children's children, unto the third and
fourth generation." It is the same God who at along

THE ME T/fOD OF RE VELA TIO.V. i 3 i

subsequent time shrunk from destroying Nineveh,
because in it were six score thousand persons that
could not discern between their right hand and their
left hand, and also much cattle, while knowing full
well that when Nineveh's hour of doom came, young
and old, man and beast would be involved in indis
criminate destruction ; and, just because He knew
this, shrinking long from the dread work of venge
ance, dallying and procrastinating, and letting things
go fearful lengths before coming to extremities. Such
is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures throughout;
slow to wrath, yet ultimately punishing wickedness
inexorably, visiting the iniquities which have been
accumulating for generations on the head of that
generation in which sin reaches its climax; taking
far more pleasure in blessing than in cursing, visiting
the goodness of fathers upon children even to the
thousandth generation, while visiting the sin of
fathers upon children only to the fourth ; so far from
being chargeable with too great proncness or haste
to punish evil-doers, that He rather often provokes
in the good (as in the case of Jonah) wonder and dis
appointment by not calling them to account more
promptly ; yet in the end executing judgment with
terrible swiftness on those who have abused His
goodness. Such is the God even of the New Testa
ment, Christ and the apostles being witnesses ; a
God most kind and good, yet capable of awful wrath
at last. Such a God Jehovah proved Himself to be
to Israel herself, not less than to Sodom and the
Canaanites. Such a God, once more, is the Power,
not ourselves, revealed in the course of all human
history. That Power puts out of the way with little

1 32 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

compunction degenerate and effete nations, to make
room for fresh vigorous races with stuff in them sup
plying material for an energetic fruitful development,
executing its notice to quit in a very rough manner.
This fact might seem to offer a sufficient apology for
the Divine action in connection with the uprooting
of the Canaanites. But Strauss insists on making a
distinction between the ordinary course of history and
God's supernatural action. The moral order of the
world has its own peculiar characteristics, and what
we have to do is not to criticise these, but to accept
them as hard facts and adapt ourselves to them.
" But when God interposes supernaturally, as all
methods of working are equally accessible to Him,
He must act in the way that is morally least objec
tionable ; therefore in the present case, having it in
view to settle the Israelites in Canaan, rather than set
on foot a war of extermination, fitted to de-humanize
the chosen people and to shock mankind, He ought
rather to have put into the mind of the original
inhabitants the impulse to emigrate to some unin
habited part of the world, even if it were necessary to
create such an impulse."* That is to say, God ought
to have revealed to the Canaanites the existence, say,
of America, and put it into their hearts to set sail
en masse for its shores. The scheme is very humane,
and it might, if carried out, have had an important
influence on the destinies of the new world ; but it is
liable to two considerable objections. The mode of
action would have been violently, magically, miracu
lous, unnatural as well as supernatural. Then, while

* "Hermann Samuel Reimarus," p. n6.|

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

133

gratifying humane feeling, it would have involved a
total oversight of the interests of holiness, which,
even for the ultimate happiness of the world, were
the supreme interests in the case. For nothing was
better fitted to qualify Israel for being the vehicle of
moral blessing to mankind than some terrible proofs
at the beginning of her history of the Divine abhor
rence of human depravity. And this remark reminds
me of another consideration having an important
bearing on the present topic. It is, that according
to the Biblical representation the people of Israel
were under the discipline of law at the time they
gained possession of the promised land. This fact
exercised a controlling influence on the manner of
the acquisition, requiring it to be such as would
serve the end of the lawgiving, the development of
the sense of sin, and especially of a deep abhorrence
of the two chief sins of the Canaanites, idolatry and
sensuality. The same fact also involved a certain
obscuration of the manifested character of God,
obliging Him, as it were, to descend from the eleva
tion of a gracious Benefactor to the lower platform
of a moral Governor, dealing with Israel and sur
rounding peoples in accordance with the rough prin
ciples of justice revealed in the moral order of the
world, which is just in tendency, and on the great
scale, but to appearance unjust and indiscriminate in
detail and jn manifold individual instances.

It thus appears that the law, even in its ethical
kernel, the Decalogue, involved for God, as the King
of Israel, a certain eclipsing of His gracious charac
ter. Still more was this the case with those parts of
the Mosaic law which were in themselves rude and
7

134

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

defective, such as the laws relative to marriage,
divorce, retaliation, etc., and also those regulating
religious ritual. I have already, in an earlier part of
this chapter, indicated certain lines of thought fitted
to show that the entrance of a legal phase into the
process of revelation was necessary, and that the ap
pearance of such a phase does not disannul the gra
cious character of revelation as a whole. What I
wish now to point out is, that the rudimentary legis
lation, which was our third source of difficulty, while
certainly concealing, did also after a fashion reveal
Divine grace. In giving such laws, God was graciously
accommodating Himself to the capacities of the
people whose moral education He had taken in hand.
The very rudeness of the legislation was a proof of
Divine condescension. This important truth cannot
be better put than it is in the Scriptures, especially
by the prophet Hosea, by our Lord, and by the
apostle Paul. The prophet, in God's name, says :
" When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and

called my son out of Egypt I taught Ephraim

also to go, taking them by their arms."* This is an
oracle worthy of the prophet of Divine love, and sets
God's action towards Israel in the early period of her
history in a most gracious light. In the events con
nected with the Exodus, God as it were adopted an
enslaved race as His son. This son it became neces
sary to train so that he should be worthy of Jiis
Father ; and as the child was found in a very rude
condition, the training could not be other than very
elementary. God had to teach Israel to walk in the

* Hosea xi. i, 3.

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. \ 3 5

paths of righteousness like a nurse taking a child by
the arms, and had to exercise a nurse-like condescen
sion and patience in connection with the self-imposed
task of Israel's moral education, and to become as a
child Himself, speaking in broken language and giv
ing laws of a very rude and primitive character
adapted to the condition of the pupil. Paul conveys
much the same idea when he describes the legal ordi
nances, with special reference to the Levitical ritual,
as weak and poverty-stricken rudiments.* The word
ffTfnx*it* signifies literally the letters of the alphabet
arranged in a row ; and the idea suggested is, that the
Jewish religion was fit only for the childhood of hu
manity, when men were, as it were, learning their
letters. The figure happily conveys the truth that
the rudimentary legislation and ritual of the old
economy were in their time and place necessary and
useful, and yet were destined to be outgrown and
superseded. If, as some think, the apostle meant the
figure to apply likewise to the religions of the Gen
tiles, then it conveys a similar truth with regard to
them also. In any case the words present a very
genial view of the Divine character as the moral and
religious Educator of men. God appears condescend
ing to begin at the beginning, and graciously stoop
ing to teach the merest alphabet of morals and
religion, in the hope of leading His pupils on gradu
ally to higher things. •

In both the foregoing representations the need for
rudimentary training is shown, without imputing any
blame to the subject of discipline. The pupil is

*Gal. iv. 9.

1 36 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

simply a child, and therefore must have such instruc
tion as a child can receive.

In the teaching of our Lord, on the other hand,
the rationale of the moral defectiveness of the Mosaic
legislation is found in the morally rude condition of
the subject, which He described by the expressive
phrase hardness of heart (ffHkijpOKCtpdiot). To the
sklerokardia He ascribed the presence in the Mosaic
statute book of a too indulgent law of divorce ;* and
to the same source He doubtless traced all other im
perfect elements in the civil code of Israel, such as
the barbarous law of retaliation, an eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth. This amounted to saying
that God gave Israel statutes that were not good,
because Israel herself was not good. It is a very
bold thought, and yet it is a thought which had been
uttered long before almost in these terms by the
prophet Ezekiel.f And bold as it appears, almost
to the extent of being injurious to the Divine holi
ness, this representation, in reality, brings the grace
of God in the training of Israel more prominently
into view than even the genial analogies employed
by Hosea and Paul. For there is greater grace in
condescending to moral perversity with a view to
gradual improvement in character, than in conde
scending to childish ignorance and imbecility with a
view to the gradual enlightenment and strengthening
of the reason. Christ did not shrink from ascribing
this greater grace to God ; and the secret of His
boldness is to be found in His own loving spirit,
which shunned not contact with the sinful to such an

* Matt. xix. 8. f Ezek. xx. 25.

THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

137

extent as to give rise to serious misunderstanding,
and earn for Him the honourable nickname of the
Sinners' Friend. He understood the conduct of the
Hebrew legislator through His own, and by aid
thereof was able to discern grace beneath all the
crudities of the Mosaic statute — grace forbearing
with moral rudeness meanwhile, and steadily keeping
in view a time when the sklerokardia should be re
moved, and regenerated men would be able to adopt
as the law of life the ideal standard of duty.

It is evident that men could not be under a legal
system capable of being characterized as it is by
prophets, apostles, and our Lord, without having
their whole way of thinking and feeling about God,
man, and the world very seriously affected thereby.
The law involved a temporary obscuration of the
promise ; and it was to be expected that while the
obscuration lasted it should lead those who lived
under it to cherish ideas concerning God and human
life, duty, and destiny bearing a stamp of imper
fection and demanding rectification by the light
which came with the dawn of the Gospel era. This
is only to say that the child's thoughts were like the
discipline he lived under. It may be worth while to
note in the close of this chapter, some of the chief
traces of the gloom of the night to be found in the
literature of the Old Covenant. The topic may be
long more strictly to the Apologetic of the Script
ures than to the Apologetic of Revelation ; but as
the phenomena in question are among the most in
teresting and impressive evidences of the imperfec
tion inseparable from the early stages of a progres
sive revelation, a brief reference to them cannot be

1 38 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

considered irrelevant. In connection with the Apol
ogetic of Scripture, the use of the study is to show
that the phenomena are such as were to be expected
from the method of revelation. In connection with
the Apologetic of Revelation, its use is to show that
the method of revelation was such as has been re
presented, a method involving growth and progress,
and therefore imperfection in the earlier stages.

Among the phenomena which indicate the effect
on men's minds of the legal discipline, may be men
tioned the comparative absence of the filial spirit
from the sacred literature of the Old Covenant, as
contrasted with the New Testament. I say com
parative, for I do not at all agree with those who, in
ancient or modern times, have asserted that the filial
spirit which regards God as a Father is entirely ab
sent from the Old Testament. It is well known what
extreme views were held by Marcion on this point ;
and similar opinions have been expressed in our own
day by men occupying a very different theological
position from that of the Gnostic heretic. In his
able work on the Fatherhood of God, the late Dr.
Candlish says: ''There is little or, I think I may al
most say, nothing of the filial element in the re
corded spiritual experiences and spiritual exercises
of Old Testament believers. The Psalms entirely
want it. The nearest approach to it, perhaps, is that
most tenderly suggested analogy, ' Like as a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear Him.' ' : Surely this is an exaggeration. The
word " Father" does not very often occur in the Old

* Lecture III.

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TIOX. \ 39

Testament ; but the filial spirit of trust in God as a
gracious Being, of which the appropriate expression
is the name Father, is certainly not so entirely want
ing as is alleged. The child, though under tutors
and governors, is not so utterly dominated by a legal
spirit, as not to know whose child it is. There is not
one of the Old Testament writers who does not know
that God deals not with men in the strict rigour of
justice, but is merciful and gracious, and that only on
that ground can any one hope to stand before Him.
But while this is true, it is not less true that there
is a certain obscuration of the filial consciousness
discernible in the utterances of Old Testament saints,'
which is due to two closely connected cause*; viz.,
the influence of the legal covenant, and the habit of
judging God's purposes by the course of outward
events. The law and the theocratic conception of
God connected therewith fostered in the minds of
Israelites a habit of regarding God as a dealer out
of rewards and punishments proportioned to nmn's
acts. Hence, when outward events were untoward,
there came a cloud between God's face and the soul
of the devout man, and an inner conflict arose be
tween two classes of thoughts, o;re suggested by
theory on the one Innd, an I o:ie sj jested by a good
conscience on the other; the >ry telling him tint in
unhappy circumstances he ought to regard himself
as the object of Divine displeasure for his sins, a
good conscience telling him that there was nothing
in his conduct that could account for the frown of
Providence. We see this conflict vividly represented
at large in the Book of Job, and shortly in the forty-
fourth Psalm.

1 40 THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION.

Closely connected with the unfilial tone of Old
Testament piety is the querulousness characteristic
thereof in view of the dark mysteries of human ex
perience. The spirit of sonship is cheerful, buoyant,
optimistic ; the legal spirit, on the contrary, is gloomy
and desponding. Clouds of sadness and depression
accordingly frequently darken the Old Testament sky.
Psalmists doubt whether God be good to the right
eous, seeing how bad men prosper, and good men are
plagued all the day long. Prophets demand why
they that deal treacherously are happy, and marvel
that One believed to be too holy to regard evil with
complacency, or even with indifference, should look
on unmoved when the wicked devoureth the man
who is more righteous than he, and suffer the inno
cent to be caught like fishes in the sea in the net of
an Eastern despot bent on universal conquest.* This
querulousness was one of the results of the legal dis
cipline, which put the people of Israel on this foot
ing: " Do right, and it shall be well with thee ; do
wrong, and it shall go ill with thee." It was a truth,
but it was only a partial truth. It does go well on
the whole with nations that keep God's command
ments, but not uniformly or to the full extent of
human wishes. It is an affair of tendency, and there
are many exceptions, qualifications, and drawbacks ;
and over and above this the legal covenant does not
exhaust the relations between God and man. These
things, however, Israelites did not understand. They
took the covenant as strict truth and as the whole
truth, and they were therefore very much astonished

* Habakkuk i. 13.

THE ME TIfOD OF RE VELA TIOK. r 4 T

to find that experience did not correspond to promise ;
and their feelings were embittered, and their ideas
confounded, and a painful perilous spirit of doubt
regarding the righteousness and the reality of Divine
Providence visited their minds.

A third element in which we can trace the in
fluence of the legal discipline in the Old Testament
is what may be called the worldlincss of its life
theory. Felicity is placed largely in outward good.
The method of reaching happiness is mainly outward,
as that of the New Testament is mainly inward.
Broadly stated, this contrast holds good ; though
here, as in regard to the absence of the filial spirit,
we must beware of extreme statements. The con
ception of a felicity not dependent on external state,
but consisting in inward peace of mind springing out
of a faith in God not to be shaken by any untoward
events, .is not foreign to the Hebrew writings. No
where in the whole Bible does it find more beautiful
and pathetic expression than in some utterances of
Psalmists and Prophets. The closing portion of the
seventy-third Psalm, and the concluding stanzas of
Habakkuk's sublime prayer, beginning respectively
with the words, " Nevertheless I am continually with
Thee," and " Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,"
may be cited as examples. But the Psalmist and the
Prophet who indited these charming lyrics did not
reach the imperturbable serenity to which they give
so graceful expression without a struggle. The man
who at last finds in God in all circumstances a source
of strength and a satisfying portion, had doubted
whether God were good to Israel ; and his doubt was
due to his placing happiness in things without, in-
7*

142 THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

stead of in God alone as the Summum Bonum. And
the hind-footed prophet who has at length acquired
the power of bounding securely from rock to rock
like a chamois on the Swiss mountains, is a man who
had found it hard to reconcile the holiness of God
with the seeming heartlessness of His attitude to
wards human affairs ; and the origin of his perplexity
was the same as in the case of the Psalmist. These
men of God had both looked for happiness without
first, and only after being disappointed in that direc
tion did they have recourse to the " method of in
wardness." And the method of outwardness was that
which came natural to Israel, as we can see from
many a Psalm and from the Proverbs of Solomon.
And this habit of thought was fostered by the law
which promised material, temporal felicity as the re
ward of obedience to the commandments; long life
to children who reverenced their parents ; full- basket
to the man that feared the Lord ; national prosperity
so long as Israel was faithful to the covenant.
" Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, wealth
and riches shall be in his house." " Blessed is every
one that feareth the Lord ; thy wife shall be as a
fruitful vine by the sides of thine house ; thy children
like olive plants round about thy table. Thou shalt
see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.
Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace
upon Israel." Such are samples of the law-bred
worldliness, or, to use a less invidious expression,
" this-world-ness " of the Hebrew, in which the child
under tutors and governors appears as yet unable to
comprehend the nature of his inheritance, and look
ing upon the things which are seen and temporal,

THE ME THOD OF RE VELA TION. i 43

not on the things which are unseen and eternal ; in
somuch that the hope of future glory after the tribu
lations of life are past, which made affliction seem
light to Paul, scarce occurred to his thoughts, and
had it been suggested as a source of consolation,
would probably only have made him melancholy.

Yet another trace of legal influence discernible
in the Old Testament may be mentioned, viz., what
we may without offence call the vindictive spirit.
That this is a characteristic of the Hebrew Scriptures
as compared with the teaching of Christ and the
Apostles, was recognised even by Tertullian, the great
opponent of Marcion. In his treatise " De Patientia,"
he speaks of that virtue as an addition to and supple
ment of the law, and as the only thing that had been
wanting to the doctrine of justice. " For surely they
demanded an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
for not yet was patience on earth, because faith was
not ; meanwhile, impatience was taking advantage of
the licence of the law, which was easy to be done in
the absence of the Lord of patience."* The great
Puritan theologian, Dr. Owen, expresses a similar
opinion in his treatise on the i3Oth Psalm. "This
duty of forgiveness is more directly and expressly
recognised in the New Testament than in the Old.
. . . . Hence we find a different frame of spirit
between them under that dispensation and those
under that of the New Testament. There arc found
among them such reflections on their enemies, their
oppressors, their persecutors, and the like, as, although
they were warranted by some actings of the Spirit

* " De PatientiA," cap. vi.

144 THE METHOD OF REVELATION.

of God in them, yet being suited to the dispensation
they were under, do no way become us, who by Jesus

Christ do receive grace for grace For all our

obedience, both in matter and manner, is to be suited
to the discoveries and revelation of God to us."
The fact and its explanation arc as represented by
these distinguished doctors of theology. The spirit
of forgiveness had not the same full possession of
the hearts of Old Testament worthies which it
attained in those who yielded themselves up to the
teaching and spirit of Christ ; and the cause was the
habit fostered under the legal economy of regulating
the life too exclusively by the law of retaliation, an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which in
principle is a good law for the State, but not the
highest law for the individual. The judge, if called
on, is bound to give redress for wrong, but I am not
bound to ask redress. I am free, in many cases, if
I will, to suffer wrong; and if I be filled with the
Spirit of Christ, I will often do so, and seek to over
come evil with good.

Such are some of the more salient characteristics
of the literature of the ancient covenant traceable to
the influence of the Mosaic legislation. It is well to
understand how such phenomena are to be dealt with.
On the one hand, they are to be frankly acknow
ledged ; on the other, they ought not to be looked on
as stumbling-blocks to faith, as if they were fitted to
bring into doubt the reality of the revelation of grace,
or the claims of writings in which such blots appear
to enter as constituent parts of the record of such a
revelation. For if we recognise the compatibility of
the legal dispensation as a whole with a revelation of

THE ME TIIOD OF RE VELA flON. \ 4 5

grace, as a stage in the course of its development,
such recognition covers all details which can be shown
to be the natural effects of the dispensation. It is
inconsistent to say it was right that the law should
come, that by its discipline it might prepare the heir
for the promise, and at the same time to be scandal
ized when you find the child's thoughts taking their
complexion from the system under which he lived ;
especially when it is considered that the direct aim of
the system was, not to teach him to think imperfectly,
but rather to prepare him for the era of perfection
that was coming. The law was not given to make
men cherish dark views of God, worldly views of life,
and vindictive feelings towards those who had done
them wrong. It was given to educate conscience in
the sense of righteousness, and for that end it repre
sented God as a Holy Sovereign rather than a Be
nignant Father, insisted on the connection between
conduct and happiness in this life, and in all depart
ments of life, and gave prominence to the duties men
owe to each other, and were entitled to demand from
each other. The defects in religious feeling, in the
motives to good conduct, and in temper, which charac
terized the men who lived under the legal system, were
accompanying incidents of the system, not ends which
it proposed to itself. You cannot come to Mount
Sinai without feeling more or less the solemn gloom
and terror its environment inspires ; nevertheless the
people of Israel were not gathered to the Mount of
Lawgiving to have their hearts filled with such emo
tions, but to get introduced into their life-blood the
steel-drops of moral law, without which neither in
dividuals nor nations come to much in this world.

THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN
REVELATION.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION.

THK chief end of miracle and prophecy, according
to the traditional view handed down to us from the
older school of apologists, is to supply proofs or cre
dentials of revelation. This view is the natural ac
companiment of a doctrinaire conception of revelation.
Revelation, according to that conception, is the com
munication of a body of truths which reason could
not have discovered, and to a large extent cannot
even verify. Such a revelation stands in need of
some evidence outside the system of doctrines claim
ing tc be revealed, fitted to justify belief in the valid
ity of the claim, and the consequent reception of the
doctrines as given supernaturally from heaven. This
need, it was to be expected, the divine Revealer
would recognise and provide for. But what more
satisfactory provision could be made than that sup
plied in biblical miracles, supernatural acts of Divine
power, and in the predictive prophecies, supernatural
manifestations of foreknowledge ? These miracles
and prophecies, therefore, arc to be regarded as signs
annexed to revelation to assure us that God is indeed
speaking to us. This mode of viewing miracle and
prophecy still holds its ground in some influential

I 5 o THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

quarters. The excellent Lectures on Miracles by the
late Dr. Mozley, forming the Bampton series for 1865,
may be cited as a conspicuous instance of the advo
cacy of this view at a comparatively recent date. Dr.
Mozley's mode of contemplating the subject is very
clearly indicated in the following sentences from his
first lecture. " There is one great purpose which
divines assign to miracles, viz., the proof of a revela
tion. And certainly, if it was the will of God to give
a revelation, there are plain and obvious reasons for
asserting that miracles are necessary as the guarantee
and voucher for that revelation. A revelation is,
properly speaking, such only by virtue of telling us
something which we could not know without it. But
how do we know that that communication of what is
undiscoverable by human reason is true ? Our reason
cannot prove the truth of it : for it is by the supposi
tion beyond our reason. There must be, then, some
note or sign to certify to it and distinguish it, as a
true communication from God, which note can be
nothing else than a miracle." The author of " Super
natural Religion " adopts the same view both of reve
lation and of miracle, and falls back on Dr. Mozley
as an authority in justification of his doing so. Chris
tianity, the Bampton Lecturer being witness, consists
of a system of inscrutable mysteries, undiscoverable
by reason and incomprehensible to reason, which
therefore have no self-evidencing power, but can be
accredited only by miraculous deeds wrought by the
agents of revelation.* The anonymous author re
ferred to was very glad, doubtless, to have so respect-

* Vide first and following pages of the work referred to.

THE FU.VC T/O.V OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ - T

able authority for such a representation of revealed
religion. It made his task as a destroyer compara
tively easy. He had but to make such a vigorous
onslaught on miracles as would suffice at least to fill

o

the minds of readers with grave doubts and perplexi
ties respecting the possibility and the verifiableness of
the supernatural in general, in order to gain the end
of unsettling conviction and detaching minds from
the faith. For revelation, so conceived, has nothing
in itself to commend it to men's acceptance; it is ut
terly devoid of self-evidencing power; its only prop
is miracle, and that being knocked from under it, or
rudely shaken, the whole superstructure tumbles to
the ground. Yea, on such a view of revelation, the
philosophical argument against miracle is likely to be
reinforced by a practical argument to this effect :
What is the worth of a religious system which con
sists of mere undiscoverable and unintelligible myste
ries, which have nothing in themselves tending to
produce faith, no inherent persuasive power? Is such
a system worth the trouble taken to accredit it as a
Divine revelation? Is it to be believed that God did
take such trouble as is implied in the series of mira
cles wrought by Him directly or indirectly for that
end ? I do not suppose the author of " Supernatural
Religion " meant to represent Christianity in a disad
vantageous light in order to serve the purpose of con
troversial tactics. The probability is, that he did not
know any better way of viewing the subject ; and his
ignorance is excusable when it is considered in what
company he errs. But the fact is, that no mode of
conceiving of Christianity so effectually plays into the
hands of unbelief as the one in question ; and the use

I 5 2 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

made of it in good faith by this formidable opponent
shows how important it is that apologists should take
care not to state the question in such a way as gives
advantage to antagonists, as I think the eminent de
fender of miracles has done in the passage above
quoted. In the interest of faith, it is urgently incum
bent on the apologist to make the relation between
revelation and miracle appear more intimate and vital.
The traditional view of the relation as purely exter
nal, creates an injurious prejudice against revelation,
by fostering an exaggerated idea of its need of attes
tation. The prejudice is as unfounded as it is injuri
ous. For, to see how different this hard outward
view of Christianity, as a system of mysterious doc
trines forced on our acceptance by miracles, is from
that presented in the Bible, it is enough to recall to
our thoughts the familiar utterance of the Apostle
Paul : " This is a credible saying, and worthy of all
acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners."* Paul regarded this truth, which is
the essence of the Gospel, as one intrinsically credi
ble, and in itself so welcome to the sin-burdened
heart, that one is not disposed to demand, or sensible
of any great need for, an imposing array of miracles
to compel belief in it, as if it were a thing which,
without miracles, would be obstinately disbelieved,
or regarded at least with sceptical incredulity. That
mighty miracles were wrought by Him who came
into the world, he of course believed ; but he did not
look on these as indispensable credentials, without
which he should have regarded the fact of Christ

* i Timothy i. 15.

THE FUNCTION OF M1RA CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ 5 3

coming on a redemptive errand as neither credible
nor acceptable. That fact, on the contrary, while not
a truth discoverable by reason & priori, appeared to
him one which, once revealed, was fitted to commend
itself alike to reason, conscience, and heart ; for what
more worthy of God than such compassion towards
sinful, erring men ? what more welcome to the bur
dened conscience than deliverance from the sense of
guilt and the dominion of sin? what more acceptable
to the heart than a sinners' friend like Jesus, who
could love even unto death, and so earn as His guer
don the enthusiastic devotion of those He came to
save ?

Our quarrel with the traditional view of the func
tion of miracle is, not that it is wholly false, but that
it is altogether inadequate, and gives the first place
to that which is secondary and subordinate, and so
leads ultimately to a wrong conception of the very
nature of miracle. Dr. Mozley cites sayings of Christ
in proof that He admitted the inadequacy of His
own mere word, and the necessity of a rational guaran
tee to His revelation of His own nature and commis
sion. The texts do certainly show that our Lord
referred to His own miraculous deeds as available
evidence in support of His claim to be one sent from
God. But they do not show that He looked on these,
viewed simply as miracles, as the main evidence of His
claims. As matter of fact He did not so regard them ;
how far He was from doing this, may be learnt from
His uniform answer to such as asked Him for a sign
that might set their doubts at rest, which was a re
fusal. Such refusals might in some cases be account
ed for by the fact that the sign-seekers were not

154

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

asking in good faith, but were merely seeking an ex
cuse for unbelief. But in other cases, as, e.g., in that
of the multitude at Capernaum, who asked, " What
dost Thou for a sign, that we may see and believe
Thee? what dost Thou work?"* this explanation
cannot be resorted to, for these sign-seekers were ad
mirers, and in their way, for the moment, disciples of
Jesus. The reason of the refusal is to be found in
this, that the seekers of a sign wanted to see some
prodigy that stood in no intrinsic relation to Christ's
work as Saviour, but was a mere arbitrary wonder
wrought for the express purpose of accrediting the
worker, and serving no other purpose. The theory
of the sign-seekers seems to have been, that the less
moral significance a miracle possessed, the less useful
it was, the better fitted was it to serve the purpose of
evidence. To turn stones into bread, and then im
mediately to reconvert them into stones, had been to
them a better proof of Christ's claims to men's faith
and discipleship than the thing He had just done,
the feeding of thousands of hungry persons in the
wilderness. Such prodigies Jesus never wrought,
ever sternly refused to work; and His refusal is a
condemnation of the purely evidential view of the
function of miracles. For on that view it is in the
miraculousness of miracles that their value as evidence
lies; and this is one of the gravest objections against
the traditional theory, that it leads to a distorted and
caricaturing conception both of miracle and prophecy.
For evidential purposes, it is the thaumaturgical ele
ment in miracle and the predictive element in pro-

* John vi. 30.

THE FUNCTION OF MIRA CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ 5 5

phccy that is of chief value. Hence we find Mr.
Arnold, in the chapter of "Literature and Dogma"
which relates to the argument from miracles, select
ing, as an imaginary typical miracle, the conversion
of a pen into a pen-wiper. With this typical miracle
he finds it very easy, as we shall see, to put the fool's
cap on the old English method of using miracles as
external signs wrought with a vjew to accredit a doc
trinal revelation — a method, unfortunately, not yet
fallen into clisuctude, the English mind being very
conservative and prone to keep in the beaten path.
Perhaps Mr. Arnold's chapter on Miracles will very
materially help conservative minds to arrive at the
conclusion that a way of conceiving the nature and
the function of miracle which cannot be typified by
the thaumaturgic feat of converting a pen into a pen
wiper, is on all grounds much to be desired.

There is such a way, and it is one naturally arising
out of the view of revelation advocated in this work.
Revelation consisting in the self-manifestation of God
in human history as the God of a gracious purpose,
— the manifestation being made not merely or chiefly
by words, but very specially by deeds, — the thought
readily suggests itself that the true way of conceiv
ing miracles, and also prophecy, is to regard them,
not as mere signs annexed to revelation for evidential
purposes, but as constitutive elements of revelation,
as forming in fact the very essence of the revelation.
Let us revert, in illustration of this statement, to the
miracles of our Lord. Christ's miraculous deeds were
all useful, morally significant, beneficent works, rising
naturally out of His vocation as Saviour, performed
in the course of His ministry in the pursuit of His

1 56 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

high calling, and just as naturally lying in His way,
as unmiraculous healings lie in the way of any ordi
nary physician. In a word, Christ's miracles were
simply a part of His ministry, and He appealed to
them in evidence, not as something external added
to His work as a seal, — the nature of the miracles
being of no consequence, provided only they were
miracles, — but as aiyntegral portion of the work, the
evidence of which was really as internal as that of
His teaching, which by its intrinsic wisdom and grace
came home to men's minds with persuasive force and
moral authority. In perfect accord with this view is
the place assigned to miracles by Jesus Himself, in
His reply to the Baptist's messengers: "The blind
receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up,
and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them."*
Miracles of healing are put on a level with preaching
the good tidings to those who most needed them,
and their evidence is of the same kind. For the reply
does not mean : Tell John that I evangelize the poor,
and that I also work miscellaneous miracles as super
natural evidence of the truth of what I preach when
I announce to them that I am He of whom the pro
phets spake, come from heaven to fulfil the hope of
Israel, and to bless the sinful and miserable. It
means rather: Tell John I am come full of grace in
word and also in deed, as becomes the Anointed One
of ancient prophecy. Bid him compare the facts of
My ministry in both- departments with the prophetic
oracle beginning with the words : " The Spirit of the

* Matthew xi. 5.

THE FUNCTION OF M1RA CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ 5 7

Lord is upon Me," and then judge for himself
whether prophecy and fact do not correspond.

The true view, then, of our Lord's miracles, is that
they were an integral part of His ministry, and there
fore of the revelation of grace made therein, not mere
credentials of that ministry and revelation ; that in
so far as they were evidential, they were so just as
His ministry in word was, and that the evidential
value of all alike and altogether lay in this, that
they were a revelation of Gcd in the fulness of grace
and truth. And the same observations apply in great
.measure to all the miracles in the Bible, those of the
Old Testament not less than those of the New. A
small proportion of the former were of the nature of
bare signs intended to serve the purpose of accrediting
God's messengers, or of aiding weak faith to believe
in God's promises ; but, with the exception of these,
all the rest were something more than evidential
appendages. The miraculous birth of Isaac was not
a mere sign, it was an important step in the onward
march of revelation. The plagues of Egypt were not
wrought to make Israel believe that Jehovah was the
true God, but to effect the deliverance of Israel out
of Egypt. Their evidence was internal to revelation,
not external ; in them God \vas in the act of reveal
ing Himself as the Deliverer. The signs in the land of
Ham, and those afterwards wrought in the wilderness,
were not credentials appended to some system of
doctrines, but direct manifestations of a gracious mind
working itself out in Providence -in favour of the op
pressed race of Abraham.

In view of these undeniable facts, it becomes evi
dent how far Mr. Arnold's miracle of the change of a
8

1 5 8 THE FUNC TION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VEL A TION.

pen into a pen-wiper is from being a fit type of the
miracles recorded in Scripture. And with the true
view of these miracles and their function in our
minds, we can read with equanimity the words in
which, under cover of a patronizing attitude of in
dulgence towards the ignorant multitude, Mr. Arnold
treats miracles with contempt, and ridicules the use
to which they are put by defenders of revealed relig
ion. " That miracles," he says, " when fully believed,
are felt by men in general to be a source of authority,
it is absurd to deny. One may say, indeed : Suppose
I could change the pen with which I write this into a
pen-wiper, I should not thus make what I write any
the truer or more convincing. That may be so
in reality, but the mass of mankind feel differently.
In the judgment of the mass of mankind, could I vis
ibly and undeniably change the pen with which I
write this into a pen-wiper, not only would this which
I write acquire a claim to be held perfectly true and
convincing, but I should even be entitled to affirm,
and to be believed in affirming, propositions the most
palpably at war with common fact and experience."*
It is for the traditional school of apologists to answer
this as best they can. I do not say that Mr. Arnold
is invulnerable even from their point of view. He
does, however, hit them hard, and make their argu
ment appear in a rather ridiculous light. But as for
us, the polite irony of this modern Athenian does not
touch us at all. For we regard miracles as integral
parts of revelation, and not as bare arbitrary signs,
like the change of a pen into a pen-wiper. And we

* " Literature and Dogma," p. 128.

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ 59

know of no miracles of that sort ; on the contrary,
we regard such prodigies as the kind of miracles which
the Jews desired Jesus to work, but which He reso
lutely refused to work. Had the miracles of Jesus
been like Mr. Arnold's imaginary one, I am afraid
they would not have had the effect of gaining for Him
implicit credence, even in affirmations palpably at
war with common fact and experience. They might
indeed have won for Him a temporary popularity,
but only to insure a Nemesis of ultimate contempt
and oblivion, the fate which awaits all professors of
thaumaturgic arts. But the miracles neither of Jesus,
nor of the Bible generally, arc of that sort ; and un
less for the purpose of bringing into discredit the tra
ditional mode of putting the argument from miracles,
the supposition of a pen changed into a pen-wiper in
connection with this topic is an irrelevance, I had
almost said an impertinence.

The mode of conceiving the function of the Bible
miracles has an important bearing, not only on the
nature of these, but on the question as to the possi
bility of removing them from the Bible without ma
terially diminishing its value for the purposes of
education. This question I alluded to in the close
of the first chapter, in giving an account of Mr. Ar
nold's views as to the chief end or use of the Bible,
contenting myself with simply stating it, and reserv
ing the discussion of it for a future opportunity. We
have now come to the point at which we can with
advantage consider that postponed topic. Can mira
cles then be, indeed, separated from the Bible without
changing its character or lessening its value? Now
we remember Mr. Arnold's opinion on this point,

! 6o THE FUNC TION OF MJRA CLE IN RE VELA TION.

and his confident claim to have demonstrated his
thesis, as set forth in the passage previously quoted.
He regards miracles as a blot on the Bible, which all
its admirers would wish to remove from its pages, as
one would wish to clear a friend from any stain on
his reputation. And he takes credit for having per
formed this service to the Bible, by demonstrating at
length that, from beginning to end, its burthen is the
supreme importance of righteousness. The precious-
ness of the revelation contained in the older part of
the book, the revelation made to Israel of " the im
measurable grandeur, the eternal necessity, the price
less blessing of that with which not less than three-
fourths of human life is indeed concerned — righteous
ness," remains the same, whether we believe the
stories about the miraculous passage through the Red
Sea and the miraculous demolition of Jericho's
mighty walls, or regard them as mere unhistorical
legends. Now, on Mr. Arnold's view of the chief end
of the Bible, his statement may be admitted to be
partially true. Grant that the Old Testament con
tains only the record of a so-called revelation of the
importance of righteousness, and not only the mira
cles named, but all other miracles become compara
tively useless. Comparatively only, not wholly ; for
displays of Divine righteousness in miraculous judg
ments on evil doers and oppressors like the Egyptians,
and miracles of deliverance wrought for the oppressed,
might greatly help to deepen Israel's sense of the
truth that verily there is a Power in the world, not
ourselves, making for righteousness. I do not, how
ever, anxiously insist on this, because I rather desire
to emphasize the previous question, viz., whether

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLR IN RE VELA TION. \ 6 1

Mr. Arnold's account of the chief end of the Bible be
correct or adequate. How far miracles can or cannot
be dispensed with, will largely depend on the answer
to this question. Granting that to a didactic revela
tion of righteousness, miracles are comparatively
superfluous, are they of as little consequence to a
revelation of grace made by acts rather than by
words — by acts of condescension, by acts revealing a
special purpose, by acts forming a series knit together
by the unity of a pervading plan, by acts culminating
naturally in the Incarnation as the nc-plus-ultra of
Divine condescension? No; for in that case the
miracles perform an organic function in the revela
tion, constitute the heart and essence of the revelation.
That grace cannot be manifested in any degree with
out miracle I do not affirm, for I admit that in the
moral order of the world the rudiments of grace as
well as of righteousness are recognisable. But I do
say that the maximum of gracious possibility cannot
be manifested without miracle, and that the more the
miraculous element in the Bible is conserved, the
more clearly does it appear that in that book we
possess the record of a gradually unfolding gracious
purpose. The more the acts by which God mani
fests His gracious will, stand out from the common
course of nature, the more manifestly they serve the
purpose intended. Take away miracle from a revela
tion of grace, and the revelation can hardly be known
for what it is. Assume that it was merely a fancy
that led Abraham to expect to become the founder
of a nation destined to inherit a particular country,
selected to be their home by Providence ; assume that
the son through whom this dream was realised was

1 62 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

born in the ordinary course of nature ; assume that,
by a lucky combination of accidents of an untoward
nature, the Egyptians were made glad to be rid of
their bond-slaves ; assume that in all the incidents
connected with the Exodus and the wilderness-life
there was nothing out of the natural course, though
possibly a certain amount of the unusual ; assume
that in the conquest of the promised land there was
no power at work in favour of Israel save the power of
the sword and of brave hearts ; — and the consequence
is, that in the whole history of the so-called chosen
race, there is no clear revelation of a gracious purpose
presiding over the course of events, and making all
things work together for its own fulfilment. With
the miracles retained as an essential part of the story,
a gracious purpose towards a chosen people is indu
bitable ; without them it is very doubtful indeed.
Remove the miraculous, and what remains is only a
singular combination of events, having no casual con
nection with each other, by which it came to pass
that an Eastern sheep-owner became the father of a
nation, small comparatively in numbers, but consid
erable in importance and notable in history. The
result may create surprise, and suggest the thought
of some controlling influence at work, shaping events
so that they might have this issue. But it is not
more surprising than the products of nature, which
exhibit in a wonderful degree an aspect of design
suggesting a Designer, but not stringently proving it
so as to exclude the contrary opinion. Retain the
miracles, and the gracious purpose is stringently
proved, and the contrary opinion excluded as unten
able. The miracles and the purpose thus stand or

THE FU.VCTIOW OF MIRACLE IN RE VELA TION. 163

fall together. To certify, beyond all doubt, a gra
cious purpose, miracle is necessary. I do not say, I
do not need to say, that all the remarkable events
connected with Israel's history were in the strict sense
miraculous. Given as much of miracle as makes evi
dent the fact of a gracious purpose, then we can afford
to admit that this or that link in the chain of events
whereby the purpose was fulfilled was not super
natural, save in the intentional use of it for such ful
filment, because God can and does workout His pur
poses by ordinary as well as by extraordinary Provi
dence. Rut unless some part of His working be
supernatural, it is always possible to deny that con
scious Divine purpose and a living gracious Providence
are revealed in human affairs. The only thing verifi
able is a neuter Power, or blind tendency working
retributivcly for righteousness, or electively for the
benefit of favoured individuals or races.

The need for miracle to overcome doubt, becomes
still more apparent when the moral condition of man
is taken into account. The sin which creates the ne
cessity for a revelation of grace, also makes the re
cipient of revelation indisposed to believe that the
Divine thoughts towards him are thoughts of peace,
unobservant of the traces of grace in nature and Prov
idence, therefore slow to understand the loving-kind
ness of the Lord. An evil conscience is sceptical con
cerning Divine benignity, prone to fear and apprehen
sive of the worst, ready enough to recognise the traces
of the Judge, backward to discern the countenance
of the Father. The trusting spirit which rests in the
truth of the Divine Fatherlincss has first to be created ;
there is an antecedent distrust to be subdued by a

! 64 THE F UNC TION OF MIR A CL E IN RE VELA TION.

special display of love so signal as to render unbelief,
on the part even of the most faithless, all but impos
sible. This special display we discover in the mirac
ulous deeds of God recorded in the Bible. These
deeds God wrought to make His grace manifest and
undeniable to sinful men ; and not otherwise, as Rothe
has well remarked, could He have made it manifest
to such recipients of His favour.

In full accordance with these views as to the neces
sity of miracle in connection with a revelation of grace,
are the representations of Scripture. A marked em
phasis is laid by the Bible writers, — psalmists and
prophets, — on the marvellousness of God's works, in
connection with thanksgivings for His grace. " Re
member His marvellous works that He hath done;
His wonders and the judgments of His mouth." The
wonders referred to arc those wrought in the land of
Ham ; and the psalmist accordingly closes his song of
praise by declaring these wonders to be a fulfilment
of God's gracious purpose and promise. " For He re
membered His holy promise, and Abraham His ser
vant. And He brought forth His people with joy,
and His chosen with gladness: and gave them the
lands of the heathen : and they inherited the labour
of the people; that they might observe His statutes,
and keep His laws."*

Still more remarkable is the emphasis laid on the
miraculous power of God by the unknown Prophet of
the Kxile. 1 laving in his view the second great man
ifestation of God's redeeming grace towards Israel,
the deliverance from captivity in Babylon, the prophet

Psalm cv.

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE AV RE VELA TION. 165

claims for the Divine Redeemer, in the most absolute
manner, a power of miraculous initiative. The God
of this new deliverance needs to be, and accordingly
in the prophetic idea He is, one capable of doing new
things. Not only so : He is capable of doing new
things in new ways. The prophet claims for God a
twofold originality: not only in the matter, but also
in the manner of His wondrous works. Whereas of
old the miracle consisted in making a way through
the sea, the new miracle is to consist in an achieve
ment of an opposite kind, viz., in making a way in the
wilderness, and rivers in the desert.* It is a poetical
representation, doubtless, but it is more, even the
pregnant suggestion of the deep philosophical truth,
that the God of grace is utterly exempt from bondage
either to the fixed course of nature, or to the past
course of history. He is not obliged in His action to
keep within the groove of natural law, or to conform
to ancient precedent. His power was not exhausted
in the first creation, nor His invention in the means
by which in former times He accomplished His ends.
There is no limit to His power, no limit to His capac
ity for new ideas. " He fainteth not, neither is weary,
and there is no searching of His understanding."f
Surely a most worthy conception of God, superior far
to that cherished either by philosophic naturalism or
by theological conservatism, one of which denies to
God the power of doing absolutely new things, and
the other, while ascribing to God miraculous power,
virtually denies to H im the power of doing new things
in new ways, and makes Him the slave of old modes

* Isaiah xliii. 18, 19. \ Isaiah xl. 28.

8*

! 66 THE FUXC TION OF MIRA CLE IN RE VELA

of action, obliged to repeat Himself, and debarred by
venerable custom from every form of activity that
wears the aspect of innovation. The prophetic con
ception is the most congenial to the revelation of grace ;
and wherever strong faith in such a revelation, — faith
worthy to be called evangelical, — prevails, this con
ception of God will be welcome. Witness Christ
Himself, who thought it no reproach to His Gospel
that it was novel — a new wine and a new garment ;
and Paul, who, with obvious reference to the pro
phetic oracle above alluded to, claimed it as a mark
of the Divine origin of Christianity, that it made all
things new.*

It thus appears that miracle cannot be separated
from the Old Testament without changing its charac
ter and lessening its value. In removing the miracu
lous, you change the fact-basis from which your idea
of the chief end of revelation is formed. The He
brew Bible, as the record of a so-called revelation,
may still remain a very excellent book ; and it may
be a very good service rendered to society in these
sceptical times, to show how much edifying matter
remains after the Zeitgeist has expurgated from the
old book all that it does not relish. All I mean to say
is, that the Hebrew Bible is quite a different sort of
book after the process of expurgation ; and the reve
lation of which it is the record is of an altogether al
tered, and may I not say much inferior, character.
Ancl if this be true of the Hebrew Bible, it is if pos
sible still more emphatically true of the New Testa
ment. Mr. Arnold thinks he can accomplish the feat

THE FUNC TION OF MIR A CL E /. V RE VELA TfO.V. \ 67

of purging the New Testament of miracle without
detriment to its intrinsic worth, by treating the
miraculous narratives, with exception of the healing
miracles (which arc deemed capable of being reduced
to natural events by means of the as yet little studied
science of Moral Therapeutics*}, as legendary tales
due to the pious credulity and miracle-mongcring
spirit of the honest but often mistaken reporters, and
by laying stress on those gospel sayings which, with
his critical acumen, he can certify to be the genuine
logia of Jesus. The essence of Christ's religion is
quite independent of miracles, for it consists in these
two things: a method of attaining the reward of
righteousness, and a secret ; the method, inwardness,
the secret self-denial. Now here, again, a part, and
not the most important part, is taken for the whole.
That Christ did teach the ethical doctrines Mr.
Arnold ascribes to Him has been already admitted.
Hut the proclamation of these truths, as I have also
already pointed out, was not the whole of His mis
sion. Whether we take the Synoptists, or Mr.
Arnold's favourite Evangelist, the author of the
fourth gospel, as our authority, we must, come to
this conclusion. The Synoptists put into Christ's
mouth what the keenest critical acumen must recog
nise as a genuine saying, oft-repeated it would seem,
" the Son of Man came to save the lost." John, in
the prologue of his gospel, says: "the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and

* On this favourite device of modern naturalism, to enable it to
recognise the historical character of the Gospel record without do-
intf violence to its philosophy, vi<k my work on the " Humiliation
of Christ," second edition, Lecture V.

j 68 THE FUNC 77 ON OF MIR A CL F. IN RE VELA TfON,

truth." The foremost idea of all the evangelists is,
" Jesus Christ a manifestation, in its fulness, of Divine
grace." Now the question is: Can you separate
the miraculous from the gospels, and retain this as
the leading idea of Christ's ministry — Divine grace
revealed in fulness? No: the Incarnation itself is
involved in the idea; for if the Incarnation is not
true, then the revelation of grace falls short of what
we can conceive it to be. And how congruous to the
idea of God become flesh and dwelling among men
full of grace that forth-flowing of Divine power in
all directions to beneficent effects, to which Jesus ap
pealed in proof that He was Christ ! Without these
miracles, — for so I must continue to regard them,
with all due deference to " moral therapeutics,"-
Jesus had been a living contradiction ; full of grace as
a copious gushing spring, yet a well without water.
He must do miracles, not in order to prove formally
that He is what He claims to be, but to be consistent
with Himself, true to Himself, like Himself. What
can the spring do but flow? and what should Incar
nate Grace do but be gracious, according to the
measure of His power, doing good in every possible
way as one full of the enthusiasm of humanity?

To this, however, it may be replied : Yes, in every
possible way ; but the question is, What ways are
possible? Must not physical miracles be excluded
as impossible? Even after they are excluded, are
there not left in the gospel narratives materials for
constructing the idea of a very gracious Saviour, at
once able and willing to help us in our manifold
infirmities? Have we not still a perfectly holy and a
perfectly loving being, who, both by His holiness and

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE. IN RE VELA TION. j 69

by His love can lay hold of the sinful and lift them
out of their degradation into a very heaven of peace
and purity? Such in effect is the Christ recently
offered to our faith and worship by Dr. Abbott with
an earnestness of conviction deserving of our highest
respect.* But whether we can rationally or perma
nently rest in such a Christ, is another question. A
Christ perfectly loving, who does no miracles such as
those recorded in the Gospels, is certainly no contra
diction, if miracles are impossible ; for love cannot
be expected to work impossibilities. But is a Christ
perfectly sinless, yet incapable of physical miracles,
not a contradiction? The only legitimate ground
for the assertion that Christ could not work physical
miracles, is that taken up by philosophic natural
ism — that the miraculous in every form is impos
sible. But is not a sinless being a miracle, not less
really that it is a miracle in the moral instead of
in the physical sphere? It is so regarded by all
naturalistic theologians, such as Keim, who accord
ingly does not hesitate to ascribe to Jesus moral
defects, while fully acknowledging His general ex
cellence. Unquestionably this is the philosophically
consistent view to which all deniers of the miraculous
must ultimately come. The alternatives we have to
choose from, therefore, are : a Christ miraculous in
His person, character, and work; or a Christ miracu
lous in none of these respects, not even in respect of
character, but at most only a remarkably good, wise,
and humane man. Such a man is doubtless some
thing to be thankful for; but he is hardly what

* Vide "Oxford Sermons" ; also, " Through Nature to Christ."

1 70 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

humanity needs for its Saviour and Lord. He who
is to occupy that high position must be divine and
sinless ; and none who with full intelligence see in
Christ the Wonderful in these two respects, can long
hesitate as to the other elements of wonder. It does
indeed take some courage in these scientific times to
continue to believe in the Gospel miracles, however
historical the narratives may appear ; and it requires,
perhaps, more courage still to hold fast the oldfash-
ioned faith unabashed by the grand oracular manner
in which Mr. Arnold, inspired by the Zeitgeist, settles
the vexed question of miracles by a wave of the hand
so to speak, or, to speak literally, by a single quota
tion from Shakspeare. " It is," says the apostle of
modern culture, "what we call the time-spirit that is
sapping the proof from miracles ; it is the Zeitgeist
itself. Whether we attack them or whether we de
fend them does not much matter; the human mind,
as its experience widens, is turning away from them."*
If this be indeed so, then to continue believing in
miracles is to run the risk of being voted a Philistine,
and to defend one's opinion is a waste of time. But
for our comfort let us remember that the Zeitgeist is
a sprite of changeable humour, and that the faith in
miracle has been again and again discarded as out of
date, and taken up again as faith in Divine grace re
vived ; a fact corroborative of our instinctive con
viction that miracles and a revelation of grace go
together.

But at this point we are reminded of the dictum of
Spino/a, that miracles, far from revealing the highest

* " Litcratmc ami Do^ma," p

THE F UNC 770. V OF MIR A CL E IN RE VELA TION. \ -j \

truth concerning God, do not reveal even the lowest
and most elementary, not even the fact that God ex
ists ; the proof being, that if miracles mean events
whose causes are unknown, they arc simply things
incomprehensible, therefore things from which we can
learn nothing; and if they mean events contrary to
nature, they tend rather to breed scepticism as to the
Divine existence than faith in God, inasmuch as what
is contrary to nature is contrary to the first notions
on which our belief in the existence of God is based.*
Now, as Dr. Mozley has pointed out, Spinoza regards
a miracle as a mere marvel, beginning and ending
with itself. And it cannot be denied that when so
regarded a miracle is an event to which no significance
can be attached. The only effect of an isolated
prodigy, is to make beholders stare. Hut it is alto
gether otherwise with a miracle viewed in relation to
other events which tend to give it meaning, say, such
a miracle as the healing of the blind man, taken in
connection with a previous intimation given by Christ
of an intention to restore to him his sight. Dr.
Mozley remarks, that " the evidential function of a
miracle is based upon the common argument of de
sign as proved by coincidence. The greatest marvel
or interruption of the order of nature occurring by
itself, as the very consequence of being connected
with nothing, proves nothing; but if it takes place in
connection with the word or act of a person, that co
incidence proves design in the marvel and ma-kes it a
miracle; atid if that person professes to report a
message or revelation from heaven, the coincidence,

* I 'it/,- rhapU'i i p. 37.

1 72 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLF. IN RE VELA TICN.

again, of the miracle with the professed message from
God, proves design on the part of God to warrant or
authorize the message. The mode in which a miracle
acts as evidence, is thus exactly the same in which
any extraordinary coincidence acts : it rests upon the
general argument of design, though the particular
design is special and appropriate to the miracle."'
This passage explains how a miracle may reveal
something of God, even when regarded as a sign
expressly wrought for an evidential purpose. Even
an arbitrary miracle like that supposed by Mr.
Arnold, by being previously fixed on and prean-
nounced as to be wrought for the purpose of accred
iting a divine messenger, would thereby cease to be a
mere prodigy, and become a revelation of Divine
thought. But the value of miracles as sources of
knowledge concerning God, is greatly enhanced when
they are regarded, not as signs attached to, but as
integral parts of a revelation, and further, not as iso
lated displays of power, but as interdependent mem
bers of a great organism of revelation in which a Divine
purpose is immanent throughout. Suppose that the
miracles of Christ had been mainly of the nature of
prodigies wrought for the avowed and preannounced
purpose of substantiating His claims. In that case
they would of themselves reveal nothing concerning
the worker except that He was in possession of very
remarkable power, and that He wished to be taken
and might reasonably be taken for what He claimed
to be. But the actual fact is, that Christ's miracles
were direct revelations of Himself, revelations of the

* "Hampton Lectures," p. 24.

THE FUNCTION OF lit IRA CLE IN RE VELA TfON. \ 73

inmost thoughts of His heart, insomuch that in their
absence we should with difficulty believe Him to be
what He claimed to be; not for the reason given by
Dr. Mozley, that to proclaim Himself God's eternal
Son, the Saviour of the world and the head of the
Divine kingdom, without substantiating His claims
by miracles, would indicate madness or insanity; but
because in that case, as already indicated, He would
be in contradiction to Himself, and present the spec
tacle of a character assumed, but not sustained or
played out. On the other hand, with the recorded
miracles as an integral portion of His history, we feel
that Christ presents to our view a thoroughly con
sistent harmonious character, in which every feature
we looked for is .fully developed, and all bear out the
title, " God manifest in the flesh in the fulness of
grace."

The true key to the Spinozan doctrine as to the
valuelessness of miracles for the purpose of revealing
God is a speculative conception of the universe which
excludes miracle as impossible. Miracles can prove
nothing only to those to whom they themselves can
not be proved. Every man who believes in miracles
as matters of fact sees in them this much at least : a
supernatural power or will at work. A miracle be
lieved in as an actual occurrence, reveals the presence
of a non-natural causality; that is to say, of a will ;
for will is the only supernatural power with which we
are acquainted. Men of a sceptical temper, however,
will hardly be persuaded that a miracle in the strict
sense, i.e., an event which could not have had a nat
ural cause, has occurred. We could conceive such
men witnessing some of the miraculous events in our

! 74 THE FUKC TIO.V OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

Lord's life, and finding themselves unable to deny the
" sensible fact," and unable to account for it ; yet
hesitating to draw the inference that it had a super
natural cause, and contenting themselves with regard
ing it as an inexplicable phenomenon. This is, in
deed, the position taken up by Baden Powell, in his
essay on miracles, in " Essays and Reviews." His
thesis is that no testimony can reach to the supernat
ural, or prove more than that something extraordinary
and perhaps unaccountable has taken place. That it
is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on
the previous belief or assumption of the parties. This
dogma either amounts to the truism that the senses
do not actually perceive the supernatural cause, but
only supply material for a rational inference as to the
presence of such causes, or it signifies that no testi
mony can establish a fact for which no other than a
supernatural explanation can be suggested. That the
writer referred to had the latter thought in his mind
is clear from these words : " The proposition that an
event may be so incredible intrinsically as to set aside
any degree of testimony, in no way applies to or af
fects the honesty or veracity of that testimony, or the
reality of the impressions on the minds of the wit
nesses, so far as it relates to the matter of sensible fact
simply. It merely means this, that from the nature
of our antecedent convictions the probability of some
kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we
know not where, is greater than the probability of the
event really happening in the way, and from the
causes, assigned." In other words, two doors are
open to the sceptic who wishes to escape from the
supernatural. The one, This fact admitted to be

THE F&VCTIOV OF MIRACLE IN REVELA TIO.V.

175

such as witnessed or reported, may have had a natu
ral cause ; the other, This fact for which as witnessed
or reported no natural cause can be conceived, may
not have happened as it appears, or has been reported.
The senses of witnesses may have been deceived.
For one who is resolved always to make his escape
from faith in miracles by one or other of these doors,
the dictum that testimony cannot reach" to the super
natural really means there is no supernatural t^> be
reached. On the other hand, when the supernatural
is regarded as real and accessible, miracles will be
considered at least possible. It will not be assumed
that escape may always be effected by one or other
of the doors indicated. There may still, of course, be
a very praiseworthy desire to verify the miraculous
fact. But a fact of the kind will be deemed verifia
ble, and when verified it will be held to be evidence
of a supernatural cause or will at work.

This, however, does not amount to much in the
way of revelation, especially when it is considered
that according to the Bible doctrine, miracles may be
wrought not merely by the will of God, but also by
other supernatural agents, not even obedient to God,
but acting contrary to the interests of His kingdom.
It has been thought by opponents of revelation that
this fact is fatal to the evidential function of miracles.
This, however, is too sweeping an inference. The
fact merely shows that some consideration of miracu
lous manifestations is necessary in order to eliminate
doubt as to the character and purpose of the Being
who is at work. This is certainly the case. The
mere fact that a supernatural power has been dis
played does not of itself indicate with whom I have

1 76 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

to do. It simply shows that I am in contact with a
higher will of some kind, good or evil. Whether
good or evil, remains to be determined by the nature
of the transactions. I learn with whom I have to do
in miraculous acts, just as I learn with what manner
of persons I have to do in my intercourse with my
fellow-men. Here the law applies : " by their fruits
ye shall know them." Christ appealed to that law in
connection with His own miracles. " If I cast out
devils by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of
God is come unto you." It will be seen that this
sort of evidence is cumulative in its effect. The
revelation of the moral character of the higher
will that is at work is made gradually ; it becomes
clear as the number of acts are multiplied, and as
their mutual connection becomes apparent, evincing
the existence of a purpose indicative of a certain
mind. It is thus we come to know the moral
character of human wills ; it is just in the same
way we come to know the character of a super
human will. One act of miraculous power suffices to
reveal the presence of a higher will, and to start the
enquiry, what sort of a will is this which I see work
ing ? It is possible that the very first act may reveal
the nature of the will, just as there are single actions
performed by men which leave us in little doubt as
to what manner of men they are. But in connection
with acts performed by supernatural agency, it is
natural that we should be slower in coming to a con
clusion, and need a number of acts, all of kindred
import, to reveal the moral character of the source of
power. Such seems to have been the case of Christ's
disciples. They believed in Him after a fashion on

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TIO.V.

177

the very first display of miraculous power ; but their
first faith was provisional and stood in need of con
firmation. And it received the confirmation which
it needed, from every new exercise of miraculous
power by their Master, until at length it was esta
blished beyond the possibility of being shaken, so
that even when their now well-known Leader spoke
in a way which shocked hearers and sent multitudes
of lightly attached disciples away in disgust, they
could calmly abide with Him and say: "We believe
and are sure that Thou art the Holy One of God."*
In a similar way was the faith of Israel in Jehovah
established. When Israel's God began that course
of action which had for its aim and issue the Exodus,
the question was raised : Who is this that is showing
Himself to us? Moses told them at the outset: " I
Am hath sent me unto you." That was, so to speak,
the hypothesis to be verified inductively by subse
quent events. By the time they got to the farther
shore of the Red Sea, the emancipated slaves could
have little doubt that a friendly divinity had been at
work on their behalf, and were prepared to sing- the
song of triumph led by Miriam :

" The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my sal
vation,

He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation,
My father's God, and I will exalt Him."

The sympathy with the oppressed against the op
pressor, displayed in the whole course of the Kxodus,
revealed a beneficent Being. The wonders wrought
in the land of Ham revealed a mighty Being. The

* John vi. 70.

1 78 THE FU\7C TION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

overthrow of the Egyptian host and of Flgypt's great
king, and the contempt poured on Egypt's gods by
the demonstration of their impotence, showed the
beneficent higher power to be the King of kings and
God of gods.

These examples suggest the thought that the know
ledge of God through His extraordinary Providence,
is reached in the same way as the knowledge of God
through His ordinary Providence. All theists believe
that we may competently attempt to learn something
concerning God from nature and from history. Some
even who are not theists admit that we may form
from the same sources some conclusions regarding
the existence of a moral order of the world. And
all, theists and non-theists, admit that the knowledge
thus acquired is the result of an inductive process.
A single event in Providence or history may be of
very dubious significance ; many isolated events arc
of very indeterminate character, leaving room for the
question : Is God indeed good to Israel, does He
really care for the right ; is He not rather a Being to
whom right and wrong, good and evil, are matters
of indifference, so far removed from the world that
such distinctions are invisible to His eye? But when
a large and a connected view of history is taken it
becomes apparent to the enquirer that there is in
deed a God that doeth righteousness, " a Power, not
ourselves, making for righteousness." Just so is the
character of God read off from the phenomena of
extraordinary or miraculous Providence. Isolated
miracles, like isolated events in the ordinary course
of history, may leave it doubtful who or what man
ner of being the agent is ; but the doubt is elimi-

THE F UNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VE LA TION. \ 79

nated as the scries of miraculous acts lengthens, and
the purpose by which the whole series is pervaded
becomes increasingly clear, till at length the bene
ficent power who has been at work is openly and
fully revealed. It would be hard for Abraham to
recognise the suggestion to sacrifice Isaac as a voice
coming from a God who was his gracious Benefactor.
It would need a second voice, rescuing at the last
moment the destined victim, to indicate the source
of the first. But taken altogether the Divine acts of
self-manifestation to the patriarch could leave no
doubt on the mind of the latter that the Being with
whom he had to do was his Friend. God's dealings
with Abraham, on review, could not but appear lumi
nous with a gracious purpose. In like manner one
or two isolated miracles out of the whole number of
wondrous works wrought by Christ might excusably
puzzle the beholder. But no candid mind surveying
the whole series could have made the suggestion that
these miracles were wrought by the power of Satan
or any of his servants. Celsus can hardly have been
in earnest when he insinuated that the miracles of
the gospel were like the tricks of magicians. At all
events, by making the suggestion he gave his Chris
tian opponent the opportunity of offering a very
complete and crushing reply. " Show me," said
Origen, " the magician who calls upon the spectators
of his prodigies to reform their life, or who teaches
his admirers the fear of God, and seeks to persuade
them to act as those who must appear before Him
as their judge. The magicians do nothing of the
sort, cither because they are incapable of it, or be
cause they have no such desire. Themselves charged

! go rHE FUNC TION OF MIR A CL E IN RE VELA TION.

with crimes the most shameful and infamous, how
should they attempt the reformation of the morals
of others? The miracles of Christ, on the contrary,
all bear the impress of His own holiness, and He
ever uses them as the means of winning to the cause
of goodness and truth those who witnessed them.
Thus He presented His own life as the perfect model,
not only to His immediate disciples, but to all men.
If such was the life of Jesus, how can He be compared
to mere charlatans, and why may we not believe that
He was indeed God manifested in the flesh, for the
salvation of our race?"*

In the foregoing observations I have virtually dis
posed of a problem which, in the older apologetic
treatises, is thus formulated : Do the miracles prove
the doctrine, or does the doctrine prove the miracles?
The question arises out of the fact that in the Script
ure it is contemplated as a possible case that miracles
might be wrought by agents of evil bias, and show
ing their evil bias by teaching false doctrine. It is a
question which concerns those who regard miracles
chiefly as evidential signs, attached externally to a
doctrinal revelation, much more nearly than those
who look on miracles not as mere signs, but as sources
of doctrine. The problem, however, remains for
them also, but in an altered form. For them doc
trine and miracles go together as manifestations of
character or purpose, like the words and deeds, faith
and life, of an ordinary human agent. In all mani
festations of character, whether by word or by deed,

* Origen, " Contra Celsum," i. 68. Pressens6, " Martyrs and
Apologists," pp. 619-20.

THE FUNC TIOV OF MIR A OLE IN RE VELA T/O.V. \ g I

in the case of ordinary agents, or in the case of ex
traordinary, there may be an element of ambiguity,
and the problem is to show how that clement of am
biguity is to be eliminated, so that the character,
spirit, and purposes of the agent may be certainly
known. And our answer is, that the ambiguity is
gradually eliminated as the mind of the agent un
folds itself in action. Whether the actions through
which character is revealed be natural or supernatural,
makes no difference.

This being so, it will be at once apparent what an
advantage it must be to be placed in a position
whence it is possible to survey the whole series of
acts whereby God manifested Himself to the world
as the God of grace. This is our case, and being so
placed we are in some respects more favoured than
the first recipients of revelation, who had the oppor
tunity of witnessing some of God's wondrous works.
Our first impression, probably, is that we who live in
an age so far removed from the years of the right
hand of the Most High, are at a great disadvantage
as believers in revelation compared to those to whom
God manifested Himself directly as the Revcaler.
We fancy that they had in it their power to be much
surer that a revelation was actually being made than
we can be that a revelation has been made. But this
is to a large extent a delusion. The evidence to us
that a revelation has been given is the character of
the revelation viewed as a whole, including miracles
and prophecies as part and parcel thereof. To a thc-
ist it is intrinsically credible that the living loving
God in whom he believes will reveal Himself in his
tory, in the fulness of His grace. He does not pre-
9

! 82 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A OLE IN RE VELA TION.

tend to demonstrate h priori that God must do so,
but with his conception of God he will not be incre
dulous as to the fact of His having done so; and, if
on a conjunct view of the alleged revelation in its
whole lengthened course, he find the self-manifesta
tion of God in grace God-worthy, he will accept the
revelation as a veritable one, until very cogent reasons
have been adduced why he should not. Now this is
the actual state of the case. The alleged revelation,
as it lies before us recorded in the Book, is God-
worthy. And as it lies there, a completed revelation,
we are in a position to feel the force of the internal
evidence arising out of its God-worthiness, with far
more effect than the first recipients. They had the
advantage of being eye-writnesses of God's miraculous
self-manifestation as the omnipotent, omniscient One ;
in regard to that we are dependent on their testimony,
and on the historical record, which cannot produce
as great a degree of certainty as seeing for one's self
yields. But, on the other hand, we have the com
pensating advantage that the completed drama of
revelation is before our eye, revealing in all its moral
sublimity the gracious condescension of the Most
High, stooping down to the level of His sinful creat
ures, "to revive the spirit of the humble, and to re
vive the heart of the contrite ones." And the result
is that, unless our conception of God be such as to
render that drama of grace impossible, the sublime
spectacle produces conviction, and we take the whole
to be what it gives itself out for, a veritable super
natural Revelation. We, in the end of days, when
the long process of evolution is complete, far removed
from the time when God made Himself known to

THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ 83

the fathers, are, compared to them, like men who
contemplate the whole cosmos as an evidence of a
Divine Designer, compared to persons whose atten
tion is engrossed by a single striking instance of
design. The men of revelation had under their eye
single instances of Divine grace revealed in -miracles
and prophecies, or, at most, a limited number of in
stances. We, on the other hand, have before our
eye a complete system of Divine self-manifestations,
spread over thousands of years, made to many differ
ent individuals; and observing the harmony which
pervades the whole, and the gracious mind that gives
unity to the long series, we feel as strongly convinced
that we have here God manifesting Himself in grace,
as in contemplating the cosmos of nature we feel
assured that therein is revealed a wise and beneficent
Maker and Preserver of all.

In the whole of the preceding discussion we have
been regarding miracles as something more and
higher than evidential signs of a doctrinal revela
tion ; as constituting, not merely proving, a revela
tion. It may be well in conclusion to remark, though
it scarcely needs to be formally pointed out, that
miracles may imply much more about God than they
expressly reveal, and may sustain, as the foundation
of a doctrinal edifice, much more than they contain.
Besides revealing a positive purpose of grace, they
may teach, by implication, essential truth concerning
the nature of God, e.g.^ the doctrine of His Person
ality. This statement will be illustrated and vindi
cated more fully when we come to consider the doc
trinal significance of revelation; meantime I take
occasion to refer to an objection brought by Lessing

1 84 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

to the competency of miracles to reveal or justify
belief in eternal truth. In a tractate on "The Demon
stration of Spirit and of Power" the demonstration
of spirit meaning prophecy, and the demonstration
of power, miracles, he maintains the thesis, that his
tory, even miraculous history, can never be the basis
of faith in eternal truth. Without calling in question
the historical value of the sacred writings, he affirms
that as no historical truth can be demonstrated, so
nothing can be demonstrated through historical
truths. That is, he goes on to say, in large capitals,
as if the statement were of vast moment, accidental
historical truths can never be the demonstration of
necessary truths of reason. The real drift of this
famous dictum is that revelation is of very little im
portance, because through such a revelation as we
have in Scripture we could not be sure of anything
being true unless we had other means of attaining
unto certainty, viz., reason. The only function left
to revelation on this view is that of suggesting
thoughts to be afterwards verified by reason. The
position laid down with such oracular confidence is
thoroughly characteristic of the eighteenth century,
and specially of the Aufkliiring period, whether we
have regard to the conception of revelation as having
for its aim to put in circulation abstract ideas, or to
the mean estimate implied therein of the value of
history. It might be sufficient to say in the way of
reply that the end of revelation is not merely or
chiefly to put in circulation ideas of reason, but to
reveal God Himself in an aspect which the human
mind can recognise as God-worthy, but which it could
not without revelation be sure of; not merely be-

THE FUNCTION OF MIRA CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ g 5

cause the truth revealed is so majestic we hardly dare
to entertain it, but also because that truth without
revelation by action would not be true, inasmuch as
grace which is never manifested in deeds, is no grace
at all. Not that we hold God bound to manifest
Himself in grace; we recognise fully the Divine free
dom and sovereignty. Nevertheless, God being what
we know Him to be, the manifestation of Himself in
grace, given the fact of sin, might be said to be a
matter of course ; and equally a matter of course
might we regard the self-manifestation of God as
Fatherly love irrespective of the fact of sin ; sudi a
revelation being to a sinless world what a revelation
of grace is to a sinful world.* The truth that God
is love is not a necessary truth like the truths of
mathematics, nor a merely accidental truth like the
historical fact of the invasion of Britain by Julius
Caesar. It resembles rather the truths of physical
science, such as the law of gravitation or the compo
sition of light, truths for the discovery of which ob
servation is necessary, yet truths which once ascer
tained are as certain as any proposition in Euclid,
though not in the strict sense necessary truths.

Such is the nature of the truth expressly revealed
by miracle and prophecy, viz., the Divine purpose of
grace. But I have said that truths of an essential or
necessary character, such as the Divine Personality,
may be implied in a miracle-revelation; it is there
fore needful to consider the question raised by Les-
sing, how far historical miraculous facts can avail to
sustain faith in such truths. Lessing argues thus.

* So Schweitzer.

! 86 THE FUNCTION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION.

Suppose I have nothing to object to the statement
that Christ raised a dead man, must I therefore hold
it as true that God has a Son, His equal in essence ?
If I have no objection to make to the historical
truth of the statement that Christ Himself rose
from the dead, must I therefore regard this risen
one as the Son of God ? That Christ, against whose
resurrection I can offer no historical objections of
weight, gave Himself out on account of His resur
rection as the Son of God, and that His disciples
on that account held Him to be such, I heartily
believe. But now with these historical truths to
spring into an entirely different class of truths, and
to desire of me that I should alter all my meta
physical and moral ideas in conformity therewith ;
to suggest to me that I must change all my funda
mental ideas of the essence of God — if that is not
a utrdfiaGit, fi<S aXXo ytvoZ, I do not know what
Aristotle meant by the expression.* To this at
tempt to rob historical facts of all moral and theo
logical significance it is enough to reply, that what
Lessing objects to in his own case, as an unreason
able demand, has been realized in thousands of in
stances. Facts believed changing men's whole way
of thinking about God, and man, and the world, and
their relations to each other, their whole theory of
the universe, in short, is not so rare a phenomenon
that philosophers should hold up their hands in
astonishment at the very idea as absurd. This was
what happened when the nations were converted

* From the above-mentioned tractate, " Ueber den Beweis des
Geistes und der Kraft."

THE FUNC TIO.V OF MI If A CLE IN RE VELA TIO.V. \ g 7

to Christianity. What was it that led men to cast
away idols and to worship one God, Maker and Up
holder of the world, and to believe in the life eternal,
with such firmness that fear of death was utterly ban
ished from their breasts? It was the Christian body
of facts, recorded in the Gospels ; the belief in Jesus
Christ incarnate, crucified, risen, for the world's salva
tion. It was not, as has been well pointed out, a fine
scheme of truths of reason, such as that God is one,
and that the human soul is immortal, which made the
early Christians so obstinate in their resistance to
temptations to apostasy, and so brave to endure mar
tyrdom. " The stress of that compulsion which car
ried so many men, women, and youths through the
endurance of tortures, even to death, and which
brought so many apostates, pallid and trembling, to
the tribunals, there to clear themselves, at the cost of
their souls, of the fatal suspicion — this compulsion
sprang wholly from the perfect conviction they had
of the certainty of that body of facts, which constitu
ted, and in which consisted, their religious belief. The
body of facts, not an opinion of the truth of principles,
was the impulsive cause of that endurance of suffer
ing."* So notoriously true is this that it is hard to
believe that Lessing was seriously persuaded of the
truth of those facts which he sought to isolate from
his philosophical and theological creed. Believe the
resurrection of Christ, and yet retain one's precon
ceived ideas of God, say those of Spinoza, to which,
according to the testimony of Jacobi, Lessing was
more than half inclined? Impossible! Spinoza did

* "The Restoration of Belief," p. 66.

1 8 8 THE F UNC TION OF MIRA CLE IN RE VELA TION.

not believe in the resurrection of Christ, and he well
knew why ; his idea of the essence of God made it
impossible that he should. Lessing did not with his
whole heart believe in Christ's resurrection any more
than Spinoza; else he could not have imagined it pos
sible to treat such an event as one having no specu
lative significance, no bearing on the theory of the
universe. The true attitude of Lessing towards the
" facts" of Christianity comes out towards the end of
the treatise already referred to, where he states that
he believes Christianity for its own sake quite irre
spective of the question whether the history related
in the Gospel be true or not. The moral truths of
Christianity are the ripe fruit of so-called miracles and
prophecies. Why should I not satiate myself with
them ? What does it matter to me whether the tale
be false or true ; the fruits are excellent.

So it comes to this at last ; let us take the moral
essence of Christianity which commends itself to our
minds, and trouble ourselves no more about the his
tory. The history is but the shell, this is the kernel ;
let us enjoy the sweetness of the kernel, and throw
the shell without regret aside. But the question is:
Does the kernel remain, after the so-called shell is
cast away? It may, on the eighteenth-century idea
of what the kernel consisted in ; abstract ideas of rea
son, about God, duty, and immortality ; or on the no
tion of Christianity current in our own day, as con
sisting simply in an ethical spirit. But if, as we have
contended all through, it be God manifesting Himself
in grace, then we cannot part with the shell without
at the same time parting with the kernel. Self-re
vealing grace is history, or it is nothing at all. It is

THE FUNC TION OF MIR A CLE IN RE VELA TION. \ 89

supernatural facts to begin with working themselves
into the course of human history, originating great
historical movements not otherwise to be accounted
for. In short, it is not a case of kernel and shell. It
is a case rather of stone fruit, like a cherry or a peach,
from which you cannot remove the stone without fa
tally injuring the fruit. You may think the history
a mere useless stone that may be cast away without
loss. But in extracting the stone you wound the
tender flesh, and through the wound the precious
juice escapes.

THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN
REVELATION.

CHAPTER V.
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION.

IN the older apologetic, as I observed at the com
mencement of last chapter, prophecy takes rank with
miracles as an evidential sign attached to a doctrinal
revelation. IrTnfhis connection stress is, of course,
laid chiefly on the miraculous element in prophecy.
The prophets are conceived of as foretellers of things
to come, and their prophecies as miracles of fore
knowledge, giving proof that they were entitled to
speak to men in God's name as authoritative teach
ers. In this evidential way of regarding prophecy
much of what was most characteristic in the work of
the prophets falls into the background. The great
business of the apologist is not to find out the pro
phet's place and function in the history of revelation,
and with reference to his own time, but simply to dis
cover as many as possible specific predictions which
can be shown to have been accomplished in subsequent
history. It is, obviously, a matter of indifference to
this argument what the subject of prophecy may be.
The particular prediction may be one analogous to
the miracle of changing a pen into a pen-wiper, a mere
prodigy of foreknowledge, it will still serve the pur
pose of revealing the presence of a supernatural ele-

1 94 FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION.

ment. Such a way of regarding prophecy degrades
it to a level with heathen divination, and hence it
has justly fallen into discredit with recent writers of
unexceptionable orthodoxy. By no one has it
been more emphatically repudiated than by the late
Principal Fairbairn, who in his excellent work on
Prophecy speaks of the habit of treating prophecy
merely as a branch of the evidences, taking account
of nothing but what it contains of the miraculous,
as having " impoverished much of our prophetical
literature, and stricken it with the curse of barren
ness." The statement is strictly true, nor does it
tell the whole truth as to the mischief wrought by
the narrow and one-sided view so energetically con
demned. The exclusively evidential use of prophecy
exercises a most serious disturbing influence within
the provinces of criticism and interpretation. Its
interest being to multiply the number of remarkable
specific predictions, its bias in all questions of date
and authorship is to adopt, without regard to the
state of the evidence, that view which makes the
writing contain the largest amount of the miraculous.
Then, as the force of the argument depends largely
on the explicitness with which the predicted event is
prcannounced, the apologetic bias naturally inclines
to that way of interpreting individual prophecies which
makes them like history written before the event —
clear, definite, unmistakable — and fosters generally a
misconception of the prophetic style which opens the
door to a fanatical and irrational mode of interpreting
unfulfilled prophecy fitted to bring the whole pro
phetic literature into contempt— the appropriate ter
ritory of theological quacks, to be shunned by all

FUNC TION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION. \ 9 5

sensible men. In the special department of Messianic
prophecy the tendency of the evidential school is to
disregard entirely the historical method of interpreta
tion, and to adopt that view of the prophecies which
makes them obviously and exclusively refer to Christ.
No good can come out of this apologetic special
pleading even to the cause in whose interest it is
practised. Its only effect is to give such writers as
Mr. Arnold an opportunity to turn the whole argu
ment into ridicule, an opportunity of which the author
of " Literature and Dogma" has fully availed him
self. In his ironical patronising way he says : " It
must be allowed that while human nature is what it
is, the mass of men are likely to listen more to a
teacher of righteousness, if he accompany his teach
ing by an exhibition of supernatural prescience. And
what were called the ' signal predictions ' concerning
the Christ of popular theology, as they stand in our
Bibles, had and have undoubtedly a look of super
natural prescience. The employment of capital let
ters and other aids, such as the constant use of the
future tense, naturally and innocently adopted by in
terpreters who were profoundly convinced that Chris
tianity needed these express predictions, and that
they must be in the Bible, enhanced certainly this
look ; but the look, even without these aids, was suf
ficiently striking."* It is a flippant caricature of the
"Argument from Prophecy," but there is just enough
truth in it to make one sensible of the necessity of
forming a conception of prophecy which can be made
subservient to the purposes of apologetic without hav-

* Page no.

196 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

ing recourse to the exegetical devices held up to ridi
cule. This accordingly is the task to which we have
now to address ourselves, as the first step in our en
deavour to ascertain the function of prophecy in the
history of revelation.

The most outstanding feature of prophecy, then,
to which all others must be subordinated, and by
which all others are best understood, is its ethical
character. The prophets were not principally fore
tellers, or prognosticators of future events ; and what
ever predictions occur in their writings, and whatever
use can be made of these for evidential purposes, the
raison d'etre of this remarkable class of religious
teachers was not to supply materials for the apologist.
The prophets were before all things preachers of
righteousness and mercy to Israel, specially to their
contemporaries in Israel. Any one can satisfy him
self of this simply by an attentive reading of the
prophetic books, with open unprejudiced mind. Ev
erywhere we find these prophets, from Isaiah to Mal-
achi, sternly reproving sin and threatening sinners
with condign punishment ; exhorting to obedience to
the Divine will, and promising the reward of pros
perity to those who do well, and striving to cheer the
hearts of those who fear God in evil times, by draw
ing bright pictures of better days to come. And in
all they say and do in fulfilment of their vocation,
their obvious aim is to make a moral impression
on the men among whom they live. As preachers of
righteousness and grace they utter predictions, telling
men what will be the reward or the penalty of their
conduct under the government of a righteous God,
and what good is in store for the world in connection

FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN <RE VELA TION. \ 97

with the purposes of Divine love. But in uttering
their predictions they have in view not men living in
ages after using these as arguments for the truth of
revelation, but people nearer themselves, sinners and
saints living in the same land as their neighbours and
fellow-countrymen. They are emphatically preachers
to their own time, and they express themselves in the
language best fitted to impress their contemporaries,
depicting the future in colours adapted to their circum
stances, so that from their style you can form a guess
as to their age. Is the evil of the present disunion ?
they represent the future as bringing back national
unity and peace; is it the misrule of ungodly kings?
then the blessing promised is a King who shall reign
in righteousness. Is the burden under which Israel
groans the heavy yoke of a conqueror? the consola
tion offered is the advent of a time when the oppressed
shall go free, and exercise dominion on their oppres
sors. Is the curse of the present captivity in a foreign
land ? the comfort for the afflicted people is the good
tidings of approaching restoration proclaimed by one
crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our
God." Is the heart of Israel heavy because the holy
and beautiful house where her fathers worshipped
God is burned with fire, and the altar and the daily
sacrifice is taken away ? the prophet seeks to revive
her drooping spirit by a gorgeous description of a new
temple, where offerings shall be presented to Jehovah
by a holy priesthood in behalf of a grateful penitent
people. Evermore the future is described so as to
suit the present need, and harmonize with the sur
roundings and the hopes and fears of the men to

ICjg FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

whom the prophetic message is primarily addressed,
and on whom it is meant to act as a source of in
spiration.

This mode of speaking, this way of depicting the
future in terms suggested by the present, is manifestly
congenial to the ctJiicaL character I have ascribed to
prophecy. Those who wish to influence their age
must speak to the age in language which it can un
derstand, sympathize with, and be moved by. Hence
arises a necessity for the prophet, in speaking of the
future, to describe it, not as it shall be in all respects,
but as those whom he addresses would wish it to be.
On this principle our Lord acted when He promised
to His disciples that they should sit on thrones judg
ing the twelve tribes of Israel. It was a way of say
ing: Ye shall have a place of importance in the king
dom of God, suited to their present ideas, and there
fore fitted to inspire hope. A more exact, less sen
suous, mode of expressing the truth would have made
little impression on their minds. Our Lord, knowing
that His language conveyed but a rude idea of the
actual fact, nevertheless used it, because His aim was
not only to predict, but to produce a moral impres
sion. Whether the prophets knew that the future
would not correspond closely to their picture is an
other question. Probably they did not. But whether
they did or not, it is certain in any case that their
language is figurative and pictorial, and that their
prophecies are far enough from answering to the de
scription of prophecy given by Bishop Butler, when
he characterized it as " nothing but the history of
events before they come to pass."*

* " Analogy," Part II., chap. vii.

FUNC TION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION. T 99

Prophecy justly describable in these terms \vould
certainly serve apologetic purposes excellently well.
It would have been very gratifying to the professed
apologist to have had at his command prophetic de
scriptions of the future written in such plain explicit
realistic terms, that the correspondence between pre
diction and fulfilment should be self-evident and un
deniable. It is certain, however, that the fact for the
most part is not so, and that many of the prophetic
oracles are couched in such terms as almost exclude
the possibility of literal fulfilment. From the apolo
getic point of view this is disappointing ; but when
we consider the subject from the ethical standpoint
we feel that the prophetic style is in harmony with
the chief end of prophecy. And this suggests the
remark that the two views of prophecy, the apolo
getic and the ethical, arc not only distinct, but to a
certain extent mutually exclusive. The more pro
phecy is fitted by its style to serve the ultimate apolo
getic use, the less it is fitted to serve the immediate
parcnetic purpose ; and conversely, the better it is
fitted to make a moral impression on those to whom
it is immediately addressed, the less likely is it to
supply the apologist with convincing arguments
wherewith to silence gainsayers. It is important to
understand this law, because failure to do so may
lead us into serious error in one or other of two oppo
site directions. On the one hand, observing the non-
correspondence between many of the prophecies and
any events lying behind us in the course of history,
we may with a certain school of interpreters expect a
literal fulfilment in the future, even in cases when the
very idea of such fulfilment is grotesque. On the

2OO FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

other hand, believing such literal fulfilment to be
now impossible, and observing that no such fulfil
ments took place at the time when they might have
been possible, except to a very limited and inadequate
extent, we may rush to the conclusion of sceptical
critics, that there is nothing supernatural in prophecy,
and regard the prophetic oracles simply as glowing
idealising pictures of the future drawn by men of ar
dent poetic temperament, very natural and very beau
tiful, but without any foundation in reality. At the
present time the latter of these two errors is the one
chiefly to be guarded against. It is specially impor
tant, therefore, to bear in mind that if many of the
prophecies have not been and never will be fulfilled
in the sense in which they would naturally be under
stood when they were uttered, the reason is not to be
sought in the impossibility of supernatural knowledge,
but in the nature of the prophetic vocation. How
ever real the supernatural may be, the prophets could
not have spoken to purpose otherwise than they did ;
therefore the fact of their speaking so cannot legiti
mately be cited in proof that the supernatural ele
ment is a chimera. The prophetic style is undoubt
edly such as to make it possible for writers of natural
istic proclivities, with a certain measure of plausibility,
to represent the prophetic delineation of the future as
" a kind of fairy tale " which the prophets told them
selves and their fellow-countrymen for consolation
under distressing circumstances ; very pathetic, and
very natural, " having the rights of poetry, but having
no pretensions to prosaic truth and reality."* There

*So Mr. Arnold.

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 2OI

is so much plausibility in the representation as to
make it very difficult, if not impossible, to convince
an unbeliever in the supernatural that he is in error.
But by bearing duly in mind the nature of the pro
phetic calling, we may at least keep ourselves from
being imposed on by naturalistic plausibilities, while
going a considerable way in agreement with unbeliev
ing interpreters as to the actual characteristics of the
prophecies. We can believe it possible that in these
oracles a Divine supernatural element is immanent, a
genuine vitally important message from God by the
mouth of His prophets to us on whom the ends of the
world are come, though, it may be, couched in words
which, as understood by their contemporaries, and
possibly even by themselves, were a very rude adum
bration of the reality.

To those who read the prophecies only with an
eye to apologetic or edifying uses, such a view will
doubtless appear unsatisfactory, and those who enter
tain it may even seem liable to the suspicion of being
in secret sympathy with rationalism. The fear of
this, however, must not be permitted to arrest honest
endeavour to ascertain by an inductive process the
actual characteristics of Hebrew prophecy. We may
rest assured that though the result of such an inquiry
may be to introduce considerable modifications in the
method of proving revelation, it will not be to rob us
of revelation itself. The whole subject of prophecy
needs reconsideration in order to rescue it at once
from the sacrilegious hands of unbelief, and from the
irrational treatment which it has often received at the
hands of faith ; and to those who undertake this ardu
ous task let us give a hearty God speed. The work

202 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

is only just commencing, and the Church may have
to wait long before it is accomplished. Already, how
ever, some things have become tolerably clear and
gained general acceptance among believing theolo
gians of the new prophetic school. In common with
theologians of the naturalistic school, like Kuenen,
they hold what is called the organic or liistorical
theory of prophecy, according to which the prophetic
oracles were addressed to the present, were rooted in
the present, were expressed in language suited to the
present, and pointed to a good in the near future
forming a counterpart to present evil, or to an evil in
the near future which was to be the penalty of present
and past sin. But they hold likewise, and here they
part company with the unbelieving interpreter, that a
large part of prophecy had a divinely intended refer
ence to the Christian era, that is, was pervaded by a
more or less pronounced Messianic element. Yet
they do not allow the Messianic aspect of prophecy
to overshadow the immediate historical sense, but
regard that sense as something to be ascertained irre
spective of the sense which we learn to put on prophecy
in the light of the New Testament. In the words
of a most distinguished member of the school : " It is
only when we survey, from the standpoint of the ful
filment of the counsels of God in Christ Jesus, the
whole of Old Testament prophecy and the progress
of its historical development, that we can come to a
full understanding of the Ideological significance of
any single prediction, but what we gain by this means
is a determination of the relation of prophecy to its
fulfilment, not an explanation of the contents of the

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 203

prophecy itself."* It is held that what we do not
learn until the period of fulfilment cannot be in the
prophecy itself ; that the meaning first given to
prophecy when considered in the light of fulfilment,
and the sense in which the prophets themselves and
their contemporaries understood it, that is, the his
torical sense, must be regarded as perfectly distinct.

Out of the organic conception of prophecy as
advocated by Riehm and others, arises naturally the
view that the representations of the future given by
successive prophets are not separate fragments of one
picture capable of being combined into a harmonious
whole, but rather independent pictures, or to use
another figure, successive steps in the growth of an
organism. The opposite view is that advocated by
theologians belonging to the older school of prophetic
interpretation, such as Hengstenberg. Hengsten-
berg's theory was, that revelations were made to the
prophet in a state of ecstasy; that he saw the future
in a vision, that in vision he saw events of the
remote future as well as of the near, but without any
perspective indicating distance ; that the historical
colouring drawn from the present was mere colour
ing, figurative language understood to be of no im
portance, so that the sense which results after the
colouring has been rubbed off is the true meaning of
the prophecy and of the prophet ; that while it was
possible for any one prophet to see in vision the full
picture of the future, each prophet described only a
part, so that the total picture is to be got by piecing
together all the separate parts. In opposition to this

* Riehm, "Messianic Prophecy," pp. 6-8.

204

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

ingenious theory, it is contended by the new school
that ecstasy was not the only or the usual condition
of the prophet when he received revelations ; that a
vision was not the principal medium of revelation,
but rather thoughts already existing in the prophet's
mind brought into distinct consciousness by the
Spirit of God ; that the prophet's view was restricted
to the near future, and that he expected the speedy
accomplishment of his prophecy while remaining
ignorant of the day and hour ; that the terms in
which he described the future were not regarded by
him as mere colouring, to be rubbed off in order to
get at the essential element of the prophecy ; and
that the successive representations of the future given
by different prophets were each severally distinct
wholes, the future, not a mere aspect of it, as seen by
the individual prophet. The two theories are very
diverse, and without deciding dogmatically between
them I may remark that, from the co-existence of
such widely divergent views as to the nature of
prophecy, each supported by able advocates, it is
evident that there is ample scope and urgent need
for painstaking, patient investigation. To emphasize
this fact, and to protest against premature dogma
tism, seems to be the chief duty of the hour, and it
cannot be more effectually done than in the words
of one whose own contributions to prophetical studies
well entitle him to speak with authority. " It is,"
says Bertheau, " a problem of theological science,
by a strict examination of all the phenomena con
nected with Old Testament prophecy, to lay the
foundations for a doctrine as to the nature of pro
phecy, and to fix the general principles correspond-

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VEtA TION. 205

ing to the historical state of the case, according to
which the rich and manifold expression of the pro
phetic spirit and the living forms of prophecy can
be exhibited and arranged. The problem is not yet
solved, nor will it be soon. With the words, ecstasy,
vision of an image, with the demand to conceive the
prophets as describcrs of pictures, the formula is not
found by use of which the door may be opened to
the hidden depths of prophecy."*

Among the questions relating to prophecy on
which much diversity of opinion yet obtains is that
as to the conditional or unconditional character of
the propheticTeprescntations of the future. Did the
prophets predict what they believed certainly should
be, or only what would be in given circumstances?
The question is forced on us by the consideration
that many of the prophecies as matter of fact were
not fulfilled. What account is to be given of these
unfulfilled prophecies ? Are we to say simply that the
prophets in these instances were mistaken ? This
is in effect the solution offered by the naturalistic
school. The prophets were earnest believers in the
moral government of God, and therefore were firmly
persuaded that under that government every man
and nation would be dealt with according to deserts.
Hence they confidently predicted prosperity for all
who did right, and ruin for all that did wrong. In
so far as there really is a moral order in the world
their predictions would come true, but as the moral
order is far from perfect, — little more indeed tlmn a
tendency, — it was a matter of course that prophetic

*' JahrbUcher fUr doutsche Thcologic," vol. iv., p. 607.
10

206 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

expectations should often be falsified by events.
The prophets in their predictions reasoned from
premises only very partially true, and their conclu
sions, therefore, were as often wrong as right.* Other
writers, admitting the facts thus unceremoniously
accounted for, explain them by insisting on the
conditional character of prophecy. On this view
all the promises of future good to Israel would have
been fulfilled had Israel complied with the prescribed
conditions. All prophecies relating to the chosen
people are conditioned by the two principles : " Zion
shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts
with righteousness," and " there is no peace to the
wicked." The failure of many prophecies promising
good to Israel is sufficiently explained by the sad
complaint, " Oh that thou hadst hearkened to My
commandments, then had thy peace been as a river,
and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." Had
Israel hearkened to God's commandments, every good
word of God spoken to her by the prophets would
surely have come to pass.f This view is certainly
very congenial to the ctJiical character of prophecy.
It was congruous to the vocation of the prophet as a
preacher of righteousness to his time to make the
fulfilment of his prophecies dependent on the good
behaviour of the people, and there can be no doubt
that in many instances he consciously did so. No
one who has not a pet theory to defend, like Heng-

* So Kucnen, and, to a certain extent, Riehm, though not belong
ing to the naturalistic school.

f So Bertheau in " Jahrbiicher fur deutsche Theologie," vol. iv.,
I>- 344-

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 2O/

stenberg, who had but one object in view, viz., to
play the part of champion of supranaturalism, will
dream of disputing the point. It may, however,
very legitimately be doubted whether the theory of
conditionally explains all the facts; whether we may
say without qualification that had Israel done what
God required, all the promised blessings would have
been bestowed on her exactly as foretold. It is at
least a feasible suggestion, that limitation of prophetic
vision must be taken into account in explanation of
the non-fulfilment of such prophecies as promised to
penitent Israel the reunion of the two kingdoms into
one, the complete recall of the Babylonish captivity
and the restoration of all the exiles to their own
land, the conversion or subjection of all the surround
ing nations, so that the chosen people might dwell in
safety, with no envious or malicious neighbours to
make her afraid.*

Whether prepared to go this length or not, all
sober and unprejudiced students of prophecy must at
least acknowledge the presence of a conditional ele
ment in the prophetic picture of the future. The
truth seems to be, that there are two classes of pro
phecies, one conditional, the other unconditional, or
conditioned only as to time and mode of accomplish
ment. A further fact of importance to be noted is,
that in these two classes of prophecy, the prophet
appears in two distinct attitudes. In the conditional
prophecies he appears as the prophet of moral laiv,
in the unconditional as the prophet of grace. The
vocation of the prophet is not fully understood unless

* So Riehm, "Messianic Prophecy," p. 154.

2O8 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

he be regarded under this twofold aspect : as exer
cising a function on the one hand in relation to God

o

as moral Governor, on the other in relation to God as
the God of a gracious purpose. The prophets were
at once preachers of righteousness, asserting the reign
of moral law over all men ; and preachers of a gos
pel, proclaiming a sovereign purpose of grace that
should certainly be fulfilled irrespective of human
conduct, — a purpose concerning Israel in the first
place, but not exclusively, — a purpose to bless Israel
that she might be a blessing to the whole earth. The
two functions, as actually exercised, were intimately
blended together, but they are in nature distinct, and
may be regarded apart. To the prophecies uttered
by the prophet as the preacher of Divine grace be
long those distinctively denominated Messianic ; to
the prophecies of law and righteousness belong those
which pre-announce the destinies of nations and
cities, such as Babylon, Egypt, Nineveh, and Tyre.
In all the latter class of prophecies is proclaimed,
with sublime emphasis, the eternal truth that there is
indeed a moral order of the world, that verily there
is a God that doeth righteousness in the earth. It is
in this aspect of their vocation that the Hebrew pro
phets are an object of intense interest to such writers
as Carlyle and Arnold, who, while making no profes
sion of faith in a supernatural revelation, have a firm
belief in a Power in the world making for righteous
ness. Such cherish and express a sincere respect for
those ancient preachers of eternal duty, and fearless
denouncers of iniquity, who kept telling their con
temporaries of all classes that God's will must be
done, and could be disobeyed only under terrible

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 209

penalties. They are not even unwilling to admit
that, in their capacity of preachers of righteousness,
the prophets uttered some remarkable predictions
which were substantially fulfilled. Men like the He
brew prophets, it is acknowledged, can divine, for
there really is a moral order of the world, and men
who with their whole soul believe in it, and who un
derstand the moral phenomena of their age, may to
a certain extent, sometimes even to a surprising ex
tent, read the future in the present. Thus the pre
dictions of doom, subsequently fulfilled, admitted to
be genuine, are resolved into natural products of in
sight into, and faith in, the laws which regulate the
moral government of mankind. Believing students
of prophecy, while conceding that some predictions
may be thus accounted for, deem it impossible to re
duce all to mere displays of sagacity, and see in cer
tain outstanding oracles the undeniable results of
supernatural enlightenment, supplying materials for
a cogent apologetic argument. The argument is com
petent, but after the most has been made of it, it is
not the one to which the foremost place is due. The
most inviting and fruitful field for the apologist is the
region of Messianic prophecies, embracing under that
head all those in which the pia dcsideria, the hopes,
the ideals of the godly in Israel find expression,
those, in other words, which embody what has been
called the Hebrew Utopia. So defined they arc a
large group, endlessly varied in character, and of un
paralleled beauty and interest, the most remarkable
utterances of the kind in the whole literature of man
kind. Believers and unbelievers alike acknowledge
the incomparable charm of these Hebrew oracles of

2 1 o FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

faith and hope, but to very different intents. Unbe
lief sees in them merely fairy tales which the pro
phets told themselves to comfort their hearts under
the sorrows of the present; Aberglaube> extra belief
rendered natural if not necessary by the shortcoming
of the moral order of the world from the ideal of a
perfect moral government. The power that makes
for righteousness does not make all the righteous
happy, and all the wicked miserable. The prophets
seeing this, and unable to reconcile themselves to the
actual moral order as the best possible, or to be
looked for, invented a system of compensations in
the future in the form of a perfect Divine kingdom,
a Messiah, and a life to come. Behold the Messianic
prophecies ! Very beautiful, and having the rights
and the worth of poetry, but nothing more, being
mere added beliefs born of undying hope, through

which —

" Mercy gave to charm the sense of woe,
Ideal bliss that truth could never know."

So regards Messianic prophecy, Mr. Arnold, natu
rally enough from his point of view, according to
which the one idea in the Bible is the Power making
for righteousness. On that view the truly valuable
part of the prophetic literature is that which asserts,
with passionate earnestness, the reality of the moral
order of the world. All that remains, the so-called
Messianic element, must be relegated to the category
of poetic inventioYi, valuable chiefly as showing how
deep and strong was the faith of the prophets in the
power that worketh for righteousness. Undoubtedly,
even on this view there is much in the prophetic
books of perennial importance to mankind ; and, as

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 2 I I

I said before in connection with miracles, so I say
here in connection with prophecy : it may be a good
service to the world to show what a valuable book
the Bible will be, even when faith in the supernatural
has finally forsaken the earth. But as the Bible is
a very different book in its whole scope and aim,
according as you exclude or retain the miracles, so
is it a very different book according to the view you
take of Messianic prophecies. If you regard these
simply as fairy tales, then the prophets will speak to
you only of righteousness. If, on the other hand,
you regard these prophecies as a system of ideals,
shadowing forth a summit m bonum destined to be
essentially realized, then the prophets will speak to
you of Divine grace as well as of Divine righteous
ness, and what they say as preachers of grace will
no longer be regarded as mere poetic inventions, but
as genuine oracles uttered by Divine inspiration. In
this light does faith regard the Messianic prophecies,
as ideals essentially realized in Christianity, and in
these prophecies so regarded it finds not merely an
important contribution to the argument for revela
tion, but a most important constituent part of revela
tion itself viewed as the self-manifestation of God in
grace.

The last observation conducts us to the proper
subject of this chapter, viz., the function of Hebrew
prophecy in connection with revelation. A full dis
cussion of this topic would require us to consider
prophecy under a twofold aspect ; not only as related
to the promise, but also as related to the law. The
latter aspect having already been incidentally referred
to, I content myself here with a few observations

2 1 2 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

on a single point connected therewith. One great
service rendered by the prophets in connection with
the law, was the assertion of the supreme importance
of the moral element in comparison with the ritual,
in opposition to the prevailing tendency to place the
ritual above the ethical. What a prominent place
the protest against this tendency held in the pro
phetic world, is manifest from the most cursory
perusal of the prophetic writings, which abound with
passages whose burden is, " to obey is better than
sacrifice." In such utterances the prophets were the
pioneers of Christianity as the religion of the spirit ;
and the preparers of a religious revolution whose
issue was to be the abolition of ritualism, and the
inbringing of the worship of the Father in spirit and
in truth. The prophets themselves were not in con
scious conflict with the ritual law, but only with the
undue importance attached to it in comparison with
the great matters of duty as set forth in the Ten
"Words. They looked on sacrifices and religious cere
monial generally simply as promises to pay the ster
ling gold of obedience; and what they could not
endure was that promises should be put in place of
performance, should be supposed to be performance.
But while this is true, there can be little doubt that
by their energetic protest against the superstitious
overvaluing of ritual, the prophets were unconsciously
heralding the advent of a time when the relation
between God and His people should be of a purely
spiritual character. There are even traces of a clear
conscious insight into the truth that ritualism could
not be the final form of religion. Perhaps the most
distinct is to be found in Jeremiah's oracle of the

FUNC TION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION. 2 1 3

new covenant, in which three blessings are specified
as the characteristic marks of that covenant in com
parison with the Sinaitic one: viz., God's law of duty
written on the heart instead of on stone tablets as
in the old covenant ; the knowledge of God so sim
plified that one should not need to tell his brother
wherein it consisted ; and the full and perpetual for
giveness of sin. The second of the three blessings
points, I think, to the abolition of the ritual law, and
the reduction of religion to the simplest and purest
spiritual service.* In making these remarks I do not
prejudge the critical question as to when ritual took
its final shape in a written form. It is enough for
my purpose if, as may safely be assumed, an oral law
relating to religious service, which men could learn
from the priest's lips, was in existence long before
the prophetic period, and even from the times of
Moses.

Passing from this topic to speak of the function of
prophecy in relation to the promise, I remark that
there is every reason to think that the prophets be
lieved in a gracious purpose of God towards Israel,
and felt it to be an important part of their duty to
keep Israel in mind thereof, by way of consolation
in adversity and strengthening against temptation to
apostasy. One broad fact, which everywhere obtrudes
itself on our attention in reading their writings, is
enough to settle the point. The prophet's eye is
ever turned towards the future ; his heart seeks
consolation, not in the memories of the past, but in

* For a statement and defence of this view, sec an article by
me in the Expositor ; vol. ix., on Jertmiafis Onicls of the Nfw Cwe-
nnnt.

214

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

the hope of better days to come. In this respect
the Hebrew prophet stands in marked contrast with
the prophets and poets of other peoples. The golden
age of Pagan poetry lies behind ; the golden age of
Hebrew prophecy lies ahead, in the future. The
contrast deserves consideration in connection with
the naturalistic hypothesis, that necessity was the
mother of prophetic hopes. Unhappy in the present,
the spirit sought refuge in an imaginary better after-
age. A plausible theory indeed ; but why did not
the same law operate in all similar cases? Why
does not necessity produce ideal hopes in all peoples
suffering under calamities? The exceptional fact
seems to demand an exceptional cause ; and what
more satisfactory explanation can be given than that
the prophets knew of a Divine purpose towards Israel,
and through her towards the world, which they be
lieved would certainly be fulfilled ? or, to put it more
definitely, that the call of Abraham and the promise
to Abraham were for them objects of firm faith?
If we assume this, the whole matter becomes very
simple. Then we can understand how, while regard
ing themselves as ministers of righteousness, they
should regard themselves as still more ministers of
grace. Especially can we understand how, when on
a review of the past history of the nation, they saw
everywhere traces of a break-down of the Sinaitic
covenant — the nation faithless to God, God visiting a
faithless nation with punishment — they should turn
with increasing predilection from law to promise,
and find in the latter a ground of hope which they
now despaired of finding in the former. May we
not see the evidence of such a mental attitude in

FUNCTION OF PROP II EC Y IN RE VELA TION. 2 I 5

the words with which Micah closes the book of his
prophecy : " Who is a God like unto Thee, that par-
doneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of
the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His
anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy. He
will turn again, He will have compassion upon us;
He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast
all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt
perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abra
ham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from
the days of old."* Naturalistic criticism tells us that
the " truth to Jacob " and the " mercy to Abraham "
had no objective reality, but were subjective products
of the prophetic spirit, written into the ancient his
tory, f Unbelievers in the supernatural need to take
up this position ; but on this view prophetism re
mains a phenomenon unexplained. The course of
Israel's religious development is, as has been well-
said, top-heavy ; the overgrowth of prophecy being
too great for the root assigned to it in the early
ages4

Coming at a time when the gospel of the promise
was needed, and when it was likely to be appreciated,
the prophets whose oracles are recorded in the
prophetic books rendered in various ways important
service, not only as emphatic proclaimers, but more
especially as interpreters, of God's gracious purpose.
They did this, in the first place, by presenting an
idea of God in harmony with that purpose. That

» Mich. vii. 18-20.

f So Pfleidcrer, "Die Religion," vol. ii., pp. 337-8. Vide ex
tract at p. 81 of this work.

\ Smyth, "Old Faith in New Lights." p. 45.

2 1 6 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

the prophets performed a distinguished part in the
development of Israel's idea of God is admitted on
all sides. Naturalistic writers even exaggerate the
service they rendered in this connection, giving them
credit for purging the Hebrew idea of the Divine
Being of national particularism, and promoting
Jehovah to the honour not merely of supremacy
among the Gods, but of sole possession of Deity;
in other words, for teaching the world the sublime
doctrine of ethical monotheism. This view does
less than justice to the ages that went before, inas
much as there is no good ground for the assertion
that, previous to the prophetic era, Jehovah was
simply a national God. The contrary is proved by
the words of Exodus xix. 5, which Ewald calls the
gospel of the Old Testament. " Now therefore, if
ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My cove
nant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me
above all people: for all tJie cartli is Afinc ; and ye
shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy
nation." Still it remains true that in the history of
revelation one very special function of prophecy was
to assert over against idolatrous tendencies, the
monarchy of Jehovah, and to set forth with force
and vividness the attributes of the one true God,
crowning the edifice with the illustrious attribute of
grace ; so giving to the world an idea of God, which
the unknown prophet of the exile justly declares to
be Israel's glory.* And having referred to that
prophet, I may remark that it is not necessary to
travel beyond his prophecies to know what manner

* Isaiah Ix. 19. "Thy God, thy glory."

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 2 1 7

of a being Israel's God is. The God of those marvel
lous oracles is, in the first place, a Creator both
in nature and history, in both spheres bringing into
existence things that previously were not. He is
the Creator of the ends of the earth, and the Maker
of Israel ; the Maker also of great characters like
Cyrus, who are raised up at critical periods to play
a signal part in human affairs. He is, further, a
Ruler who has all human destinies under His control,
and who rules over all in righteousness, herein differ
ing from all the gods worshipped by other Semitic
peoples, who, while also conceived as rulers, Baalim,
were not rulers in righteousness. He is yet again
not only a righteous Ruler, but the supreme Ruler, a
Sovereign without a rival. This truth the prophet
proclaims when he represents Jehovah as saying, " I
form the light, and create darkness. I make peace,
and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things " ;
words in which some have discovered a reference to
the religion of the Persians, the good feature of which
was that it believed earnestly in a morally good God,
who loved right and hated wrong, and made all good
things; and its weak feature that it regarded many
things in the world as the workmanship of another
being, who, if not the equal of the good Spirit, was at
least independent of Him, and His perpetual rival ;
not deeming it otherwise possible to guard from taint
the moral character of Deity. But the brightest at
tribute of Israel's God remains to be mentioned. He
is not only a just God, but a Saviour; not only a
Power making for righteousness, but a beneficent
Being who deals not with men after their sins, who,
in sovereign love, forms and executes gracious pur-

2 1 8 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

poses, and who illustrated this attribute of His char
acter in the election of Israel, and in His whole
dealings with Israel in the course of her history down
to the date of her captivity in Babylon ; and was
about to illustrate it anew by a second great act of
deliverance. And not only is He a Saviour for Israel,
but for the whole world. Israel has been chosen to
•be a missionary of the true religion to the whole earth,
to be a light to the Gentiles, teaching them how to
think of God, and bringing to them the joy of God's
salvation. " Look unto Me," saith the God of this
prophecy, " and be ye saved all the ends of the earth,
for I am God, and there is none else." Jehovah is
not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles
also ; therefore He saith, " Behold Me, behold Me,"
unto nations that had not hitherto been called by His
name.

Here surely was a sublime conception of Deity in
which Israel might legitimately boast ! It is the
glory of the Hebrew prophets to have given adequate
expression to Israel's faith. This is honour enough,
without claiming for them the credit of originating
the idea. This they certainly did not do. The pro
phets did not create Israel's God, neither did Israel
herself create Him. On the contrary, Israel was
created, formed into a peculiar people by her God,
and taught the knowledge of His character by her
marvellous history. God gave to Israel that lofty
idea of Himself; gave it not by abstract statements
of theological truth, but above all by deeds, by the
call of Abraham, by the events connected with the
deliverance out of Egypt, and the settlement in
Canaan, by the guidance of Israel's history through

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION.

2I9

many crises in subsequent ages. The idea was the
reflection of a character manifested in a continuous
course of action in the evolution of a gracious pur
pose. But for this Divine action, not the most gifted
of Israel's sons, not even the prophets themselves,
had been able to form such a lofty idea of God as we
find in the prophetic writings, and especially in those
of the later Isaiah, and of Hosea the prophet of Di
vine love. The idea was not an invention, but a reve
lation made gradually through history, and reaching
its full-orbed lustre in the prophetic epoch. I forget
not that the prophets were inspired ; but their inspira
tion did not enable them to originate a new idea of
God. It rather assisted them to read aright the his
torical revelation of the Divine name and nature.

A second service rendered by the prophets as min
isters of the promise was the proclamation of the
truth, so apt to be hidden from Israel's view by her
election, that in that promise all nations had an in
terest. Universalism, the sense of the solidarity of
mankind, the conviction that, in spite of all appear
ances to the contrary, God cared for all peoples, and
would ultimately make them all partakers of the bless
ings of His grace, is, by general acknowledgment, one
of the most outstanding and striking characteristics
of the prophetic system of thought. In the judgment
of naturalistic criticism, this universalism is a pro
phetic discovery or invention ; to one who believes
in a revelation of grace, it is simply an emphatic
recognition of a truth underlying Israel's vocation
from the first. The originality of the prophets here
lies not in the discovery of an absolutely new truth,
but in the energy with which they grasped, and the

220 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

enthusiasm with which they expressed, an old com
paratively overlooked one ; and in doing this they
contributed very materially to the better compre
hension of God's gracious purpose. For it is beyond
question, as I have already hinted, that the election
of Israel, her vocation to be a peculiar people, in
proportion as it was earnestly believed in, would tend
to foster the conceit that the chosen race had a mono
poly of Divine favour; that, in fact, such a monopoly
was the very meaning of the election. It would be
difficult for members of the peculiar people to under
stand that election was simply a method, whereby
one was being trained to bless the many. Hence one
of the tasks devolving on the few to whom was re
vealed the secret of the Lord, would be to teach the
chosen people this lesson, which they \vere so slow
to understand, and to remind them of the mystery
of love to the Gentiles hid in the Divine bosom.
This task prophets and psalmists faithfully performed,
as is witnessed by beautiful lyrics like the sixty-
seventh and eighty-seventh Psalms, and by many a
golden oracle to be found scattered like gems over
the pages of the prophetic literature. As a fruit of
the same ministry of witnessing to the catholicity of
God's gracious purpose, we may regard some other
portions of the Old Testament, in which one judging
of canonicity by the rfarrow test of edification might
have difficulty in discovering any claim to form a
part of the sacred collection ; the book of Job for
example. That book has little to teach us ; it is re
markable for darkness rather than for light ; we see in
it only certain non-Israelitish men engaged in a com
paratively fruitless discussion on the ways of Divine

FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION. 2 2 1

providence. But if the test of canonicity be, as surely
it ought to be, subserviency to the chief end of revela
tion, then the right of the book of Job to a place in
the canon cannot reasonably be disputed. For one
canonical function, at least, the book certainly does
perform, that, viz., of bearing witness to God's interest
in men without the pale of the elect nation. A simi
lar observation may be made with reference to the
whole chokmah literature, the humanistic character of
which, evinced by the absence of all distinctively Is-
raelitish reference, may seem at first sight to make its
presence in the Hebrew canon an anomaly. The hu
manism of the chokmah literature is the very ground
of its claim to be there, and the very essence of its
canonical function, serving, as it does, to remind the
chosen people that God was not their God orily, to
the exclusion of all the rest of the world. On similar
grounds we can regard with equanimity critical dis
cussions respecting the literary character of such a
book as that of the prophet Jonah. Whether it be
history, or whether it be parable, that book bears wit
ness to the catholicity of Divine grace, and in per
forming that important canonical function, it fully
vindicates its title to a place in the literature of reve
lation.

The greatest service rendered by the prophets, as
ministers of the promise, remains to be mentioned.
It consisted in conveying an idea of the good to be
brought to Israel, and to the world, by the final ful
filment of God's gracious purpose. The oracles in
which the nature of the sumi)inm bonum is foreshad
owed, constitute together, as already said, what are
called the Messianic prophecies, the name being in

222 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

strictness applicable to those prophecies only in which
the hopes of the future are made to centre in a Per
son whose sublime mission it should be to satisfy the
spiritual longings of humanity, but legitimately and
conveniently applied also to all prophecies descriptive
of the benefits to be ushered in by the Messianic age.
These prophecies are very various in their character,
and exhibit the ideal good under almost every con
ceivable point of view ; at least under every point of
view naturally suggested by the history and the in
stitutions of the chosen people. The promise to
Abraham that his seed should bring blessing to all
nations supplied one ready starting-point, and sug
gested the idea of a world-wide commonwealth, having
its centre in Zion, and for its metropolis Jerusalem,
and presenting the goodly spectacle of a universal
brotherhood, and a catholic Church worshipping One
God made known to the ends of the earth by the mis
sionary activity of Israel. Such is the picture of the
golden age presented in the psalms above referred to,
and in the oracle of tlie mountain of the Lord's house,*
and in the magnificent description of the latter-day
glory, in the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah. Other stems
upon which the Messianic hope could be grafted were
the institutions of the priesthood and the kingship.
Both these institutions might legitimately be brought
into connection with the gracious purpose of God
towards Israel. For the elect nation, like every other
nation, needed organisation, and for its well-being as
a state required priests to transact for it in things per
taining to God, and kings to exercise over it just gov-

* Isa. ii. i ; Micah iv.

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TIOX. 223

ernment as the visible representatives of the invisible
King Jehovah. The prophets recognised the legiti
macy of both offices, though they used great freedom
in criticising the manner in which priestly and kingly
functions were performed by many occupants of office.
They could therefore, without impropriety or incon
sistency, introduce the ideals of a perfect king and a
perfect priest into their picture of the golden age, and
the shortcomings of actual kings and priests made
such ideals very welcome. Hence we find many of
the prophecies take the form of predictions of the ad
vent of a King who should reign in righteousness, and
confer upon an oppressed and downtrodden people all
the blessings of good government. As a type of this
class may be cited the oracle concerning the rod out
of t lie stem of Jesse* In that prophecy the Messianic
King is connected with the royal house of David.
This, as is well known, is a frequently recurring feature
in the prophecies in which the ideal takes the form
of a king. The reason is, partly that David was the
nearest historical approximation to the ideal of a the
ocratic king, and partly that he had received a prom
ise that his seed should exercise perpetual dominion
in Israel. f

There arc prophecies of a perfect priest as well as
of a perfect king. These may be considered to have
their root in the Levitical priesthood, though some of
them might conceivably be brought under the cate
gory of the Messianic kingship, the priestly office of

* Isa. xi.

f On the reality of tliis I'romisc.z'/V/V "Old Testament Prophecy" ;
the Warbnrton Lectures for 1876-1880. liv Rev. Stanley Leathes,
D.I). Lectures v. and vi.

224 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

Messiah being regarded as an attribute belonging to
Him as a King. In this view the theocratic king is
not only the representative of the invisible ruler, but
the representative of the people before God. As Is
rael was a kingdom of priests, He in whom the nation
culminated might not inappropriately be endowed
with the highest priestly honours. On this principle
the remarkable oracle concerning the Melchisedec
priesthood has been interpreted as referring in the
first place to one of Israel's historical kings.* One
advantage resulting from this view is, that when the
priesthood is included under the kinghood, there is
less risk of the Messianic prophecies being supposed
to refer to different persons; the two ideals may then
most naturally be conceived as meeting in one person.
But there certainly arc some prophecies in which the
priestly order appears distinct from the kingly. This
holds true especially of the latest prophecies, e.g.,
those in Zechariah. There, beside Zerubbabel, a de
scendant of David, stands the high priest Joshua, in a
position of honour altogether novel ; and, correspond
ing to that position, Messiah is represented as a Priest
in whom the ideal of that sacred office is realized, in
the oracle of the Branch.^ In this prophecy it re
mains doubtful whether the Messianic priest and the
Messianic king are, in the prophet's mind, one person
or distinct.

We have thus in the prophetic writings, prophecies
foreshadowing an ideal missionary activity, an ideal
kingship, and an ideal priesthood, with all that should
accompany these good things, a universal religion, a

* /f .,;'., by Riehm, vide "Messianic Prophecy,1' pp. 71-3.
f /ech. vi.

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELA TION. 22$

kingdom of God, a blessed fellowship between God
and man. Whether the first of these ideals, the pro
phetic, refers to an individual or to a community,
and whether the second and third, the kingly and
priestly, refer to two persons or to one only, are ques
tions that may legitimately be asked ; but all three
ideals enter into the prophetic representation of the
future. They are not all to be met with in each of
the prophets. One gives one, another another, and
the close relation between prophecy and history ap
pears in the correspondence between the kind of
ideal presented by a particular prophet, and the cir
cumstances of the Hebrew nation when he prophe
sied. The prophets of the Assyrian period think of
the Messiah as a king, finding in Him one who should
be able to cope with the great monarchs of the earth.
In the prophecies forming the second part of the
book of Isaiah, which, whether written at the time of
the exile, were at all events written for that time,
there is no word of a Messianic king. The " servant
of God " of these prophecies is a prophet, whose vo
cation is to give light to the Gentiles, and who in the
discharge of his office is destined to suffer much at
the hands of an unbelieving world. After the exile,
when the work of engrossing interest was the rebuild
ing of the temple and the restoration of the temple-
worship, the priestly office came to the forefront, and
the Messianic ideal took the form of a priest sitting
on a throne, and exercising influence with God in be
half of the people.

But while the Hebrew prophets, according to their
varying temperaments and circumstances and the
diverse revelations made to them, present the Mes-

226 FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION.

sianic hope under different aspects, they all concur in
making on our mind one general impression. With
one voice they say : the present form of religion and
of the kingdom of God is not the perfect or the final
one. The perfect is yet to come ; all that has been
or is, even in Israel — priesthood, kinghood, religious
ritual — is imperfect and therefore transient. The
perfect, the religion of the spirit, the true priesthood
and kinghood are in the future. In one other thing
all agree. They not only say, the Perfect is yet to
conic, but they say, the Perfect shall come ; the ideal
shall be realized. These prophecies of ours are not
mere dreams, mere idle tales which we tell ourselves
and our brethren to amuse our sad minds. They are
the word of the Lord which endureth for ever, and
as such they must be fulfilled. If the Scriptures con
tain the record of a veritable revelation, this prophetic
faith ought to be true. For just at this point a
marked difference ought to be observable between
ethnic and revealed religion. The ideals of Pagan
religions may, to a large extent, be poetic dreams,
never destined to be realized ; but the ideals of re
vealed religion ought to be realized, and by their
fulfilment be proved to be no dreams of the prophet's
heart, but revelations from heaven. That these
ideals should be enclosed in temporary husks, destined
to be cast aside when the era of fulfilment comes, is
not a matter to cause surprise.. We will not expect
every word of the prophet to be fulfilled to the let
ter ; neither will we lay too much stress on remark
able individual details, looking for exact correspond
ence between these and events occurring in the era
of fulfilment. We will simply ask : have the pro-

FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION. 227

phetic expectations been realized in the main, or have
they not? Have the new covenant, and the spiritual
worship, and the universal religion, and the Divine
Prophet, Priest, and King come, or do \ve still look
for them, and look for them in vain ?

The short and simple creed of the apostolic Church,
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, is an affirmative
answer to the question, to the effect that J_esusjs the
Messiah of Old Testament prophecy, and that in
Him and in the religion which He founded all the
ancient hopes of the Hebrew nation were essentially
fulfilled. This answer the catholic Church in every
age has endorsed, and the cordial acceptance thereof
is one of the marks by which the position of faith is
sharply distinguished from that of unbelief. In con
fessing this truth all believing theologians are at one;
and the fact is to be emphasised in view of the differ
ences of opinion which prevail among them as to the
best method of proving the doctrine accepted in com
mon. On this latter point two widely contrasted
views are held. One lays the stress of the argument
on the remarkable special predictions concerning the
Messiah, such as those relating to the birth from a
virgin and the rising up of the Messianic Deliverer
out of Bethlehem. On the other view, the wisest
method of proof is to begin with the great general
outlines of Messianic prophecy, with the aim of
showing that in Christ Old Testament ideals are
gathered up in a centre and in the highest sense
realized, reserving specialties for the conclusion, and
using them thus, not as the foundation, but as the
copestone of the edifice of faith. This view naturally
commends itself to those who are convinced that

228 FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION.

every one of the special predictions had a primary
reference to some historical event or character much
nearer the prophet's time ; an opinion which, as held
by believing theologians, is not meant to deny that
these predictions had also a divinely intended refer
ence to Jesus Christ, which, from a doctrinal point of
view, may be the more important. But this latter
position, as held by the school of interpreters I now
speak of, is the effect, not the ground of faith.
Having satisfied themselves on other grounds that
in Jesus Messianic prophecy is fulfilled, they are pre
pared to recognise a divinely ordered teleology imma
nent in all prophetic utterances, a teleology whereof
the prophets themselves were, to a great extent, un
conscious. Apart from the question of interpretation,
this change of front seems best fitted to serve the
present interests of apologetic. For unbelief finds it
much easier to dispose of the individual predictions
on which the older apologists rested their case, than
to explain away the correspondence between Chris
tianity and Hebrew prophecy in the great general
outlines. The distinction between primary and
secondary prophecies — that is, between those whose
first and perhaps exclusive reference is Messianic, and
those in which a primary reference other than
Messianic cannot be denied, and only a secondary
reference to Messiah can be maintained — this distinc
tion is very unstable and unsatisfactory. The dis
tinction of course implies that only the primary
prophecies can be the basis of faith ; and the argu
ment, as between the apologist and his opponent,
resolves itself into a wrangle about individual pro
phecies and their proper interpretation. How un-

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 22Q

satisfactory the issue of this debate is likely to be we
may learn from these words of Mr. Arnold : " Who
will dispute that it more and more becomes known
that these prophecies cannot stand as we have
here given them? .... That the passage from Gen
esis with its mysterious Shiloh, and the gathering of
the people to Him, is rightly to be rendered as
follows: 'The pre-eminence shall not depart from
Judah, so long as the people resort to Shiloh (the
national sanctuary before Jerusalem was won), and
the nations (the heathen Canaanites) shall obey
him.'" This one instance may suffice as a sample
of the way in which the Messianic reference is elimi
nated. I do not mean to say that the interpretation
given is right, and that the apologist must yield the
point. There is more probably in many individual
prophecies than the children of the Zeitgeist find.
But if not right, Mr. Arnold's interpretation is at
least plausible; and of all similar cases plausibility
may be predicated to such an extent as leaves the
unbelieving interpreter with a very complacent con
viction that he has truth on his side. It is surely
therefore wise to give prominence to the view that
even if all the remarkable special predictions and so-
called primary prophecies were explained away one
by one, there would still remain ample solid ground
on which to construct a weightier, if less simple argu
ment, tending to show that in Christianity we have
the glorious fulfilment of a Divine purpose of grace,
whereof predictive intimations and forcshadowings

*" Literature and Dogma," pp. 111-114
1 1

230

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

are to be found in every page of Hebrew prophecy,
in every glowing picture of the good time coming.

That in Jesus were fulfilled the best aspirations
and hope of the Hebrew race is, to a certain extent,
admitted by naturalistic critics ; but in a way which
utterly fails to do justice to the facts. Here, also,
Mr. Arnold may be taken as a representative man.
In his opinion the fusing together of the various
ideals of Old Testament prophecy was a procedure
warranted neither by strict interpretation of the texts,
nor by any real Divine purpose, but was simply an
original stroke of genius on the part of Jesus, a happy
audacity. This, however, it certainly was. The bright
idea struck Him to take the suffering servant of later
Isaiah and make him one with the Messianic King
who was to come forth out of Jesse's roots, and with
the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven,
and so to set Himself to found a kingdom, not by
might nor by power, but by the force of truth and of
meekness and patient love. And the idea succeeded,
and success justified the audacity and the innovation.
Attempts at such a combination of apparently incom
patible ideals had been made before, which is not
surprising, " for the true line of Israel's progress lay
through it. But not he who tries makes an epoch,
but he who effects, and the identification which was
needed Jesus effected."*

This is plausible, but not satisfactory. It cannot
content any thoughtful, serious man, no matter what
philosophical school he belongs to, to be told that
Christ's success was a happy hit, and His relation to

* " Literature and Dogma," p. 96.

FUNCTION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION, 23 1

the Old Testament a self-constituted and arbitrary
one. One cannot help thinking that the happy
combination of Old Testament ideals in Christ's con
sciousness was grounded on the eternal truth of
things, and that His success was the fulfilment of a
purpose of the living God, shadowed forth in those
prophetic ideals. As to the former point, it is by
no means clear that the prophets themselves had no
suspicion of the truth that the ideals might meet in
one person.* But grant they had not, and that for
want of such insight they thought of their ideals as
mutually exclusive; may we not regard the combina
tion of these in the consciousness of Christ as the
result of a more than prophetic knowledge, and the
marvellous success of His work, in spite of its entire
contrariety to the spirit of the world, as the experi
mental proof that the combination was not only
legitimate, but divinely intended ? Have we not, in
fact, in Christ not only the fulfilment of the pro
phecies, but the filling up of them, the supplement
of their deficiency, the last and highest prophecy as
well as the realization of all prophecies that went
before, gathering their scattered rays into a focus,
and yielding a Messiah not one-sided, but all-sided,
and proving Him to be the true Messiah just by the
union in Him of all prophetic ideals?

Such is the view of the fulfilment of Messianic
prophecy which commends itself to those in our day
who, while firmly believing with the Church of all
ages that Jesus is the God-given Christ in whom His
promises are Yea and Amen, nevertheless feel that

* Vide Isa. liii. ; specially vcr. 12.

232 FUNC TION OF PROPHEC Y IN RE VELA TION.

modification of the old argument is demanded by
modern criticism and exegesis. They see in Christ
and Christianity the flower and fruit, and in ancient
prophecy the bud. They see in Jesus of Nazareth
and His religion all Old Testament religious ideals
realized. Not only so, they see in Christianity more
than they believe it possible to see in Hebrew pro
phecy, apart from the light shed on it by fulfilment.
They not only find in prophecy an evidence of
Christ's Divine mission, but they find in Christ a key
to the understanding of prophecy, a key to the
riddle of the ancient oracles, a clear unfolding of
what they dimly hinted at. Christianity contains for
them all that the prophets taught, and more, " just as
the living plant contains the life, and more than the
life, of the seed ; just as the day contains the light
of dawn and more light. Prophecy is the seed, the
twilight glow; Christianity is the life, the full day."*
According to this view Christ is, in the first instance,
Plis own witness; and instead of being proved con
clusively by prophecy, interpreted apart from the
light of the Christian era, to be the Christ, He first
enables those who believe in Him to understand
aright the prophecies, and to see in the correspond
ence of these, rightly understood, and His personal
character and history, the evidence of a Divine pur
pose running through the previous ages and finding
its fulfilment in Him. And such, indeed, to a great
extent, is the actual state of the case. The pro-

* Adeney, "The Hebrew Utopia," a Study of Messianic Pro
phecy, p. 354. An excellent book, by one belonging to the
modern school of apologists whose position I have attempted to
indicate.

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 233

phccies are not such, that by the mere citation of
them you can shut a man up to the belief that Jesus
of Nazareth is the Christ. They are rather such that
when, on other grounds, a man is disposed to receive
Jesus as the Lord and Saviour, what in them was
enigmatical before, becomes luminous with meaning.
The proof from prophecy is not mathematically strin
gent ; a mind not spiritually prepared to feel its force
can evade it. For special predictions other fulfilments
than those supplied in the life of our Lord can be
sought out ; and with reference to general prophecies
embodying the Messianic ideals, the position can be
plausibly taken up, that the ideals were not conceived
by the prophets as meeting in one person, could not
indeed, being in their nature incompatible. How far
prophecy is from being irresistible evidence, is suffi
ciently apparent from the reception actually given to
Jesus by His contemporaries; who, though familiar
with the letter of the Hebrew Scriptures, scouted His
claim to be the Messiah as altogether preposterous.
Even in the case of the few who believed in Him,
faith was not the effect of the proof from prophecy.
Believers did not first study the prophecies and then
come to Jesus as disciples ; they first came to Jesus,
and then learnt how to interpret the prophecies. The
proper interpretation of prophecy was not the cause,
but the effect of their faith. And the same thing
holds good in the experience of Christians generally.
" Prophecy scrveth not for them that believe not, but
for them which believe."* We come to Christ, drawn

" It must, hoxvcvcr, not he forgotten that the office of prophecy
is not to convert, but to convince ; not to lay the foundation, but to
confirm those in whom it has already been laid ; for we are told

234 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

by His own native attractions, and we learn in His
school how to read the Old Testament. It does not
follow from this that the prophetic argument is of no
value. Prophecy does indeed speak first to faith, but
then its deeper meaning is revealed from faith to the
production of higher, stronger faith. Prophecy may
fail to lead an unbelieving man to Christ ; but when
one has become a believer, he is confirmed in his faith
by the inner harmony between the spirit of prophecy
and the doctrine of Christ. And, as his faith grows
in intelligence, his sense of the extent to which the
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy becomes
deepened. At first he may be impressed only by the
correspondence between a few of the broad features
of prophecy and the history of Christ and Christian
ity : the new covenant of Jeremiah's oracle, the spir
itual religion insisted on by all the prophets, the ex
tension of the true religion to all nations, the mission
of " the servant of Jehovah " as the herald of the new
era, and his sufferings in the performance of the duties

on sufficiently high authority, that prophecy serveth not for them that
believe not, but for tJicm which believe. Let us not seek, therefore,
to make prophecy, or the study of prophecy, do a work for which
perhaps it was not designed. Let us not endeavour to make it
sustain or support the whole superstructure of the Christian fabric.
That it is one of the converging evidences of the Christian faith we
are only too thankful to remember. Let it not be supposed that it
is the only one, and let us not reason as if it were. Christianity is
an historic religion, and its central weight rests upon a small group
of facts, those, for instance, which are gathered together in the
Apostles' Creed. If the main facts of the Christian creed are not
accepted, it is utterly useless to appeal to prophecy. If we do not
accept the verdict of history, we shall certainly reject the testimony
of that which claims to have anticipated history." — STANLEY
LEATHES' Warburtmi lectures, pp. 10, n.

FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION. 235

of his high calling. The spirit of prophecy may thus
mean, to begin with, the best things, the choice pas
sages in the prophetic writings, containing anticipa
tions of the Christian religion. But by-and-by it
comes to mean much more than this — even the soul
animating the prophetic oracles from beginning to
end ; not merely the flower, but the sap which per
vades the whole plant ; not merely a few outstanding
passages, but the drift and tendency of the entire
literature. The whole Old Testament now appears
an organism of which Christ is the final cause. When
this position is reached, one can afford to regard with
great equanimity discussions as to the meaning of
particular predictions, because he understands that
" in the argument from prophecy we have to do with
a forest, not with a single bough or a basket of leaves ;
with the whole trend of a coast, not with the single
headlands or inlets of the sea ; with a zone of con
stellations, not with scattered stars."* And yet, just
on that account, he can now believe that even these
special predictions for which unbelieving criticism
thinks it has discovered a non-Messianic interpreta
tion, have a divinely intended reference to Christ.
The remarkable correspondences between some of
these predictions and events in the life of Christ,
which at first may have seemed purely accidental and
surprising, appear now as natural as the correspond
ence which subsists between the structure of an or
ganism and its environment, or between the features
of a son and those of his father. In like manner that
the history of Israel, the experiences of individual

* Smyth, "Old Faith in New Lights," p. 248.

236 FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN RE VELA TION.

members of the chosen race, and the Levitical insti
tutions, should be foreshadowings of the good things
to come with Christ, appears from the viewpoint of
faith not at all incredible. When we have once ac
cepted the doctrine that in Christ was fulfilled a grand
redemptive purpose of God for which all previous
history was a preparation, wre cannot have any diffi
culty in believing that a Divine teleology was imma
nent in all the outstanding features of Israel's eventual
story : in her religious services, in the lives of her best
kings, in prophetic utterances referring primarily to
events and circumstances connected with the prophet's
own time. Typical meanings of ritual institutions
and double senses of prophecies are doubtless myste
rious things, which, in the hands of unwise interpre
ters, may easily degenerate into the magical and ab
surd ; but the radical objection of unbelief after all is
not to these, but to that which they presuppose, a
Divine purpose of grace cherished from the earliest
ages, never lost sight of, gradually evolved in the
course of time, and finally reaching its consummation
in Jesus Christ. To none but those who doubt the
purpose is the Messianic reference of the whole Old
Testament a serious stumbling-block.

THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
REVELATION.

i ['

CHAPTER VI.

THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVE
LATION.

IN the first chapter we saw that two diametrically
opposed opinions concerning revelation have been
entertained: the one, that it is wholly doctrinal ; the
other, that it has nothing to do with doctrine. The
truth lies between these extremes. Revelation,
though not in the first instance doctrinal, neverthe
less has a doctrinal significance which was unfolded
with increasing clearness as the process of revelation
advanced towards its consummation. And not only
does it issue in doctrine ; it presupposes doctrine.
The tree of revelation has a speculative root, as well
as a foliage and fruitage of positive truth. Every
religion has its own way of looking at God, man, and
the world ; in other words, reflectively or instinctively
every religion has its characteristic theory of the uni
verse. Christianity is no exception. As the religion
of redemption it is anything rather than speculative ;
a fact, not a theory ; nevertheless, it presupposes cer
tain views concerning the great subjects of specula
tion, which no one can help cherishing who believes
in a revelation of grace, and which can be deduced,
b. priori, from the Divine fact given to faith. If
Christianity be true, if it be indeed the case that God

240 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

has revealed Himself in history as the God of grace,
bringing His love to bear as a redemptive force on the
sins of mankind, then certain inferences follow con
cerning God, and concerning the object of His loving
care. These speculative presuppositions of the relig
ion of redemption, though not formally taught, are
tacitly assumed and everywhere implied in the Script
ures, and may be gathered therefrom by inductive
inquiry. But even without consulting the Scriptures
we can determine for ourselves the speculative impli
cates of revelation, so far at least as to be able to an
swer the question, How does the Christian theory of
the universe differ from that of Pantheism, or of Pa
ganism, or of Deism, or of Materialism ? My chief aim
in this closing chapter, is to vindicate the apostolic
assertion that the Bible is profitable for doctrine, that
it possesses value not merely as a means of moral and
religious edification, but moreover as an aid towards
determining the didactic significance of the central
fact of revelation. But it may be a useful introduc
tion to the discussion of this thesis, to consider
briefly what we can learn for ourselves from the bare
idea of revelation as the self-manifestation of God
in grace, or of Christianity as the religion of redemp
tion.*

Among the self-evident or demonstrable presup
positions of Christianity are the following : —

i. That God is an ethical Personality. The God
who reveals Himself as a God of grace cherishes and
executes a purpose of love. But to cherish a purpose
and to love are acts of a Personal Being.

* On this subject the reader may consult Delitzsch, " System der
christliche Apologetik."

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 24!

2. That man also is a moral Personality, and occu
pies a most important place in the universe. He is
the object of God's care ; God is mindful of him ; God
seeks his love: has for His aim in redemption to es
tablish a fellowship between man and Himself. Man,
therefore, must be a person and not a thing, for there
can be no fellowship between things, or between a
person and a thing, but only between persons.* And
as a moral personality man is not merely a part of the
world, but stands above the world, supernatural in
his being, and possessing the high dignity of a son of
God, a dignity which he retains even amid his moral
degradation, because even then he is an object of Di
vine care.

3. That sin is a reality for God ; in other words,
that God is a Holy Being. All slight, minimizing,
apologetic, optimistic conceptions of sin as a triviality,
an infirmity, a necessity, or as the negative side of
good — " good in the making " — are incompatible with
honest faith in an economy of redemption. Both the
theology and the anthropology of this faith exclude
such thoughts. Moral distinctions cannot, like binary
stars to the unassisted eye of man, be invisible to the
eye of a God who has manifested Himself in history
as a moral physician. God does not attempt the im
possible or the unnecessary ; therefore sin can be
neither a fatality nor a trifle to Him. Then the place
which faith assigns to man in the universe equally for
bids such slighting thoughts of his moral shortcom
ings. To take a genial view of sin may appear hu
mane, but it is not respectful to the sinner. It is to

* Dclitzsch pithily remarks thai there can be no fellowship be
tween God and the mountains.

242 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RR VELA TION.

treat human nature with contempt, to regard man as
a being so weak that it is vain to expect virtue from
him ; as a victim of necessity who only deludes him
self when he imagines he is free ; as a thing, not a
person ; an animal, not a rational being.

4. That God is the Maker of the world, the
Creator of matter not less than the Father of our
spirits. In the Pagan theory of the universe, matter
is eternal, and in a sense independent of God. This
view the believer in a religion of redemption cannot
accept, for more than one reason. First, because it
compromises God's character as personal, and His
position as the supreme. Personality demands that
God should be independent of the world, and supre
macy demands that the world should be dependent
on Him. The two demands are satisfied only by the
doctrine of creation as involving a beginning of the
world. If we suppose the raw material of the world,
the v\ij, to have been eternal, God may still be inde
pendent of the world, but He cannot be supreme, for
the world exists independently of Him. He is not
in that case the Creator of the world, but only the
shaper of chaos into a world of order, a cosmos. If,
on the other hand, we assume an eternal process of
creation, so excluding the idea of a pre-existing un
created v^il, then we save the Divine supremacy at
the cost of Divine independence. Creation then be
comes a process of necessary emanation, excluding
freedom, and God becomes confounded with the uni
verse as the original ground out of which all being
by an incessant and necessary process flows, the natura
naturans of Spinoza's system. The alternatives be
fore us are Manichsean dualism or Pantheism. God

DOCTRTXAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELA 77OAr.

243

is either one of two, or He is not even one ; He has
not even the privilege which we enjoy of being an
independent personality, a whole over against the
world ; but is either a part of the world, or the world
itself under a certain aspect. But a still stronger
reason for the doctrine of creation is to be found in
the necessity for excluding the notion that matter is
the source of moral evil, as incompatible with faith
in redemption. If matter be the cause of sin, as
Greek philosophy taught, then redemption, as Celsus
justly held, is impossible. The only possible redeemer
in that case is Death. This Pagan doctrine, therefore,
must be eliminated if redemption is not to be made
void ; and the most effectual way to neutralize it is
to believe that matter is God's creation, and therefore
good, that the Redeemer of man's soul is also the
maker of his body, and that, therefore, the latter, so
far from being the source of inevitable sin, is itself
capable of redemption. This, therefore, the believer
in a revelation cf grace firmly holds as an essential
part of his creed.

The foregoing are amongst the more obvious ele
ments of the Christian theory of the universe. Less
certain, yet equally congenial to the central truth of
faith, are those which follow.

5. There is a close connection between the moral
evil in the world, and the physical. What the precise
connection is it is rather difficult to determine. It
may be hazardous to affirm that physical evil univer
sally is the God-appointed penalty of moral evil.
Schleiermacher lays down the position that the col
lective evil in the world is to be regarded as penalty
of sin, social evil directly, natural evil indirectly. The

244 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

meaning of the thesis so far as it relates to natural
evil is, that objectively considered such evil is not
caused by sin, but subjectively considered it is the
penalty of sin, because without sin it would not be
felt to be an evil. According to Schleiermacher the
physical world cannot be altered by sin, therefore
death, which belongs to the order of nature, did not
come into the world after sin, but the whole world
appears different in consequence of sin. This view
is certainly in accordance with the genius of Christi
anity, as a religion which contemplates all things
from an ethical point of view. That religion takes
an ethical view of God, of man, and of human con
duct ; how congruous to its general way of looking at
things that it should bring the whole aspect of nat
ure under the same category, and regard the present
state of the physical universe as in a pre-established
harmony with the moral condition of its human in
habitants. The hypothesis does not necessarily im
ply that the order of nature was altered after sin
entered the world ; it need imply only that in the
teleology of the creation regard was had in the fram
ing of nature to the foreseen event of sin. Death,
decay, violence may have been in the world not only
before man sinned, but before man existed. But they
were because he was to be ; prior in time they were
posterior to man's sin in creative intention. God
made the world, that is to say, such that it might be
a fit abode for a race of morally fallible beings, with
all the materials necessary for their moral discipline,
with evils of diverse sorts to be regarded as penalties
of sin, and also with manifold benefits indicative of
Divine patience, summoning to repentance, and in-

DOC TRINA L SIGN I PICA NCE OF RE VELA TIOX. 24 5

spiring in the penitent hope of pardon. This view
of the universe harmonizes best with the tendency of
Christianity in all things to subordinate the natural
to the moral, as opposed to the religions of heathen
ism, which subordinate the moral to the natural. It
has the further recommendation, that it steers a mid
dle course between Optimism which sees no evil in
nature, and Pessimism which sees in it no good ; be
tween the rose-coloured theories of the Deists and
illuminists of last century, who resolutely refused to
see a dark side in nature, and the sombre views of a
Schopenhauer, who sees in nature so much evil that
the universe might well be mistaken for the work of
a devil rather than of a good God. Christianity sees
in the world both evil and good : evil because man
hath sinned, and God desired that man sinning should
discover sin to be a bitter thing; good because God
is gracious and dealeth not with men after their sin ;
the evil and the good bearing witness to two econo
mies of judgment and mercy which, however, are
radically only parts of one redemptive economy,
working in different ways towards the fulfilment of
God's gracious purpose in Christ, to which the whole
constitution of nature and the whole course of his
tory are subservient.

6. The present state of things is not final. The
faith of redemption teaches us to expect a palingene
sis, a renovation of all things, the introduction of a
new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness, the advent of an aeon when the crea
tion shall be emancipated from the bondage of vanity
and corruption, and when her groaning and travailing
shall issue in the birth of a renovated world, bring-

246 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

ing redemption even to man's body, and completed
sanctity to his spirit ; bringing renewal not merely to
the individual, but to society — not merely to man,
but to physical nature. Already Christianity has
achieved much ; it has caused God's kingdom to come
on this earth in at least a rudimentary way, confer
ring many benefits on humanity, participated in even
by those who do not believe in Christ or so much as
know His name. It conferred blessing on the world
even before Christ's advent, as the hidden ground of
God's patient bearing towards our race from the first.
But when all has been reckoned up which Christian
ity has done for men in spiritual and temporal re
spects, for individuals and society, for Christendom
and for Heathendom, for pre-christian and for post-
christian ages, it comes far short of what shall be.
We look for results more worthy of the love of God,
more commensurate with the moral grandeur of the
act by which the foundations of the new order of
things were laid, more clearly demonstrating that
Christ is the centre of the universe, in whom all
things both in heaven and in earth are gathered up.
We do not, indeed, expect the grand consummation
to come soon. For we observe that Providence works
leisurely and is never in a hurry, one day being
with the Lord as a thousand years to us, so that He
takes His promise as calmly the day it is made, as
we take events which happened a thousand years
ago ; and, therefore, our faith does not fail on dis
covering reason to think that millenniums may elapse
before the work of redemption shall have reached its
full development. Nevertheless we, according to His
promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth

DOCTRIXA L SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 247

wherein dwelleth righteousness. For we observe
that this also is a feature of God's providential
working : that while He never hurries, He also never
forgets ; though He work slowly, yet worketh He
surely, a thousand years being to Him as one day
to us, so that at the end of a thousand years He
remembers and is in earnest with His purpose, as
we remember and lay to heart our purposes the very
day they are formed.

To these speculative presuppositions of Christianity
some add the doctrine of a Fall, and the doctrine of
the Trinity. They are certainly both congruous to
the central conception of revelation, but it may be
doubted whether, apart from the Scriptures, we could
deduce them from the mere idea of Christianity as
the religion of redemption. Schleiermacher, while
regarding Christianity as a state of completed fellow
ship between God and man brought about by Christ,
denies that a fall, and by implication an unfallen
state, are involved therein. He views Christianity
not as a restoration, but as the completion of the first
creation, which in his opinion did not culminate in
a sinless man, but simply in a human being endowed
with the bare rudiments of personality, to whom
sin was a certain if not an inevitable experience —
a mere matter of course. In advocating this view,
Schleiermacher is manifestly influenced by the desire
to maintain harmony between faith and the claims
of science and philosophy. Nevertheless, it must be
admitted to be a perfectly legitimate opinion from
a speculative point of view. The fact of a Divine
interposition for the redemption of mankind from
the power of moral evil docs not necessarily shut

248 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

us up to any particular view as to the origin of sin.
Schleiermacher's hypothesis for the solution of that
hard problem may be false in point of fact, but it
is not incompatible with faith in a revelation of
grace. As regards the doctrine of the Trinity, when
we look at redemption as a completed fact involving
the Incarnation, and the institution of the Church as
a society animated by Christ's spirit, it is impossible
not to feel that, in connection with the revelation of
grace, God manifests Himself under a plurality of
aspects, as Father, Son, and Spirit. But whether the
Trinity so given be a trinity of manifestations or of
Persons, a trinity as conceived by Sabellius or the
Trinity set forth in the creeds, neither reason nor the
Christian consciousness by itself could determine. It
is, therefore, only what was to be expected when we
find Schleiermacher, whose method of determining
what is to be regarded as matter of faith is an appeal
to the Christian consciousness, teaching a merely
Sabellian Trinity.

Conscious of inability to advance further in our
unaided endeavour to ascertain the didactic import
of revelation, we gladly turn to that sacred literature
which was given by inspiration for instruction and
for discipline in righteousness. But here our way is
barred by certain moderns, who tell us that it is vain
to go to the Bible in quest of objective truth ; one
party affirming that the sacred book contains no ma
terials for the construction of any doctrine whatso
ever, and was never intended to supply such ; another,
while admitting the availableness of the book for doc
trinal purposes, denying the absolute truth of any
doctrines thence deduced. Of the former class Mr.

DOCTRINAL SIGXIF1CANCE OF REVELATION.

249

Arnold is the best known representative ; of the lat
ter, Dr. Mansel. Mr. Arnold carries his agnostic
attitude to the extreme length of denying that the
Bible teaches us anything concerning God, even that
He is personal. God, we are given to understand, is
simply a personification of that righteousness to
which the temperament of the Hebrew led him to
attach a preponderating importance. The fact-basis
of the personification was the observation that there
is a Power, not ourselves, in the world making for
righteousness. This much is implied in the Bible
forms of speech, but nothing more; no definite opin
ion concerning the nature of God, such as that He is
personal, or that He is the intelligent Author and
Governor of the world. The Bible writers meant to
affirm no more than is admitted by Strauss, viz., that
there is a moral order of the world ; they had no
theory as to the cause of this order.

In taking up this position, Mr. Arnold assumes that
the only source of information concerning Jehovah,
or the Eternal, accessible to the Bible-writers, was
nature and ordinary providence. He altogether ig
nores the miraculous element, and along with that the
gracious aspect of God's character whereof the mira
cles are the fact-basis. But the question is : can we
retain these and still affirm that the Bible implies no
particular vie\v of the Divine nature and character ?
That we can legitimately make such an affirmation
concerning the Bible, as conceived by Mr. Arnold, is
admitted ; for on that view the fact-basis of all Script
ure representations which are to be regarded as of
permanent value is simply that moral order of the
world which, as we have seen, is recognised by men

250

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

of all schools, even by atheists.^ But can we say the
same thing of revelation as we conceive it? We can
not ; for the fact-basis here is not merely the moral
order of the world, which forms part of the course of
nature, but supernatural manifestations of God, not
regarded as facts at all by Mr. Arnold, and which
cannot be recognised as facts by any man who is not
a theist. Assuming the reality of the fact-basis of the
Bible name for God, — the Redeemer, — we learn these
things from it. First, God is a Being who cherishes
purposes, sets Himself ends to be worked out by a
process of historical evolution. Second, God is a Being
who, while usually working according to the course
of nature, and always so shaping His action that it
shall enter easily and harmoniously into that course,
is yet not chained down to the fixed order of things,
but is so far above the world, and free in His relation
to it, that He can at will produce results which nature
itself could not accomplish. In these two inferences
combined we have the idea of Personality, so abhorred
by Pantheism and so ridiculous in Mr. Arnold's eyes.
God has conscious purposes which He freely fulfils,
sometimes by natural causes, sometimes by supernat
ural ; in other words, if we believe the narratives in
the sacred book to be historical, we must conceive of
God as self-conscious and self-determining, that is, as
personal. If we reject the attribute, we must reject
the alleged facts by which its ascription to God is
justified and demanded. That is to say, we cannot
with Mr. Arnold deny the Personality of God without
also with him mutilating the Bible, and cutting out of
it everything miraculous. Of course by the method
of mutilation you can make the Bible teach just as

DOCTR1NA L SIGXIFICA XCE OF RE VELA TIO <V. 251

little as you like. But if the question be what notion
of God is suggested by the Bible, then it must be
taken as it stands, and being so taken, it will be found
to yield a very different idea of God from that ex
tracted from it by the author of " Literature and
Dogma," an idea into which Personality as defined
enters as an essential ingredient.

But the Scriptures do not merely teach by necessary
and omnipresent implication, that God is personal.
They exhibit Him as an ethically perfect Personality.
The purposes which the Bible ascribes to God are
gracious ones ; the acts it represents Him as perform
ing are acts of mercy and faithfulness in the further
ance of a benignant design. The writers have intense
faith in the reality of Divine love, and they record
facts which supply all the proof of its reality that is
possible. It is certainly true that they labour in ex
pression when speaking of Divine love. Mr. Arnold
remarks of the language of the Bible, that it is lite
rary, not scientific ; words thrown out at an object of
consciousness not fully grasped, which inspired emo
tion. It is a just observation, but not in the sense
the author intends. The Bible writers do throw out
words at God, very specially when they speak of His
love. Paul speaks of heights, depths, lengths, breadths,
in connection with Divine love, without indicating to
what he refers ; crowding thought and intense emo
tion here, as often elsewhere, making shipwreck of
grammar.* Psalmists speak of multitudes of tender
mercies, and represent God's mercy as in the heavens.
Prophets declare that God multiplies pardons, and

* Vide Lightfoot on Galatians, at the place chapter ii. 3-10.

252

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

back the daring affirmation by the reflection that in
the magnanimity of forgiving love, God rises in His
thoughts and ways as far above men as heaven is
above the earth. These are samples of phrases thrown
out at Divine charity, but not in the sense that they
are fine words to which no corresponding reality exists
in the Divine nature, but rather in the sense that the
Divine reality is great, sublime, beyond conception
or expression. A very substantial difference. Mr.
Arnold's words thrown out are rapturous phrases
flung at a cloud which a man in a heated state of
imagination mistakes for a mountain. The phrases
quoted from the Bible are uttered by men who find
themselves in presence of a veritable mountain range,
and who cannot get words that shall adequately ex
press the feelings of admiration awakened by the ma
jestic sight.

Passing from Mr. Arnold to Dr. Mansel, we find
him, in his Bampton Lecture on " The Limits of
Religious Thought," laying down the position that
God cannot be known in the truth of His being, and
that what is " revealed " concerning God in the Bible
tells us not what God in His own nature is, but only
what He desires that we should believe concerning
Him. The revelation is only a quasi-revelation. This
theory of modified agnosticism is advocated in an
apologetic interest, the design of the Lecturer being
to cut away the ground from below opponents of
revealed truths by demonstrating the incompetency
of speculation on such transcendent themes. The
human mind can know nothing really about God ;
therefore it cannot know that the mysterious doc
trines of the faith are false. There is, however, rea-

DOCTRIXA L SIGN I PICA NCE OF RE VELA TION. 253

son to fear that what was meant for defence, is, in
effect, a betrayal of the cause of revelation. As Mr.
Maurice put it pithily, the refutation of unbelief costs
too much, the cost being the revelation in defence of
which the refutation was elaborated. For if revela
tion be quasi, what is the value of it ? Is it a revela
tion at all ? If the doctrine of Scripture tell us not
what God is, but what He would have us believe Him
to be, how can we know that He even wishes us so to
think? Is not the wish also quasi ? Everything on
this hypothesis is quasi. We have a quasi revelation
of a quasi wish that we should believe certain propo
sitions as quasi truths concerning a Being who in very
deed is utterly unknowable. Can we wonder that
men should decline to accept this system of quasis
and make-believes, and prefer, with Mr. Herbert
Spencer, to take up the position : if the absolute can
not be known, then it is incompetent to make any
affirmations concerning it, and the only logical posi
tion is theological nescience. If, therefore, we are to
hold by a revelation at all, and to escape from natu
ralistic agnosticism, we must believe with all our heart
that God can be known truly, though not adequately
—known especially on the moral side of His being.
This certainly is the faith of the writers of the Bible,
and between this and the agnostic creed there seems
no tenable standing-ground. It is possible that the
resolute maintenance of the knowableness of God, and
of that which goes along with it, the essential identity
of the Divine nature and human nature, may increase
the pressure of difficulties connected with particular
doctrines. But it is folly to seek escape from such
difficulties by adopting the sceptical tenet that mor-

12

254

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

ality is not the same thing for God that it is for men.
Yet such is the position taken up by the Bampton
Lecturer, in an apologetic interest. There is an ab
solute morality, we are told, based upon the nature of
God ; but what that morality is we cannot imagine.
But if we cannot know what the morality is, how can
we know that there is a morality for God at all ? If
Divine morality is not identical with human morality
in kind — of course they cannot be identical in all par
ticulars — to speak of an absolute morality is simply
to put together two mutually cancelling words. Un
less we can say that love means for God what it
means for man, we had better not say that God is
love at all ; for the statement conveys no intelligible
idea. Far from being a revelation, it is not even
sense. On the whole, the chief value of Dr. Hansel's
well-meant effort is to present to the world a rcductio
ad absurdum of an apologetic method which reduces
revelation to mystery, and relies on a system of ex
ternal evidences which give no aid to faith or rest to
the heart, but at most avail to shut the mouths of
gainsayers.

The Bible, then, is indeed profitable for doctrine.
The benefit, however, is not to be attained without
pains on the learner's part. For the Bible does not
supply us with a ready-made summary of the doc
trinal import of revelation, stating in so many propo
sitions what knowledge the self-manifestation of God
in grace conveys concerning God Himself, concerning
man the recipient of His grace, and concerning the
blessings which by His grace God confers on man.
This propositional or scholastic way of teaching is not
at all the manner of the Bible. Nowhere in the sacred

DOCTKINA L SIGN I PICA NCE OF RE VELA TJON. 255

book do we find in tabulated form a statement even
of the more essential truths of revelation, not to
speak of the more detailed doctrines of the second
order of importance which have been extracted from
the Scriptures by the learned investigations of theo
logians. We do find there an exact summary of
duty; but there is no table of credenda answering to
the table of moral laws given in the Decalogue, set
ting forth, e.g., that the God of revelation is a Trinity
in Unity; that man is a being made in God's image,
but fallen from the ideal of his nature through sin,
and so depraved that without Divine aid he cannot
fulfil the end of his being; that the benefits which
God in His grace confers on sinful man are the free
pardon of sin and the renewal of his moral nature ;
and that the former is conferred for the sake of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, incarnate and crucified, and
the latter communicated through the gift of the Holy
Spirit as the immanent source of sanctification. In
view of the innumerable controversies that have
arisen in the course of the Christian ages as to what
is to be believed, and the melancholy effect which
these controversies have had in disrupting the Church
into a thousand fragments, it may seem a matter for
wonder and regret that it did not please God to give
in the sacred book a distinct, clear statement of all
that was necessary to be believed in order to salva
tion, and as a basis for the fellowship of saints — a
sum of saving knowledge not to be subtracted from
or added to. But it may be questioned whether it
were possible to frame a sum of doctrine expressed in
language that should exclude the possibility of doubt
or dispute as to its meaning, on the part even of the

256 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION'.

stupid, the subtle, or the perverse. In any case, such
a doctrinal summary has not been vouchsafed. The
Bible conveys to us its didactic lesson in a very occa
sional, indirect, and indefinite way. Its method is
literary, not dogmatic. It teaches, as it were, without
intending to teach ; relates a history, and leaves us to
infer the lesson ; indites a psalm expressive of the
sentiments awakened in the writer's mind by contem
plation of the manifestation which God has made of
Himself, and leaves us to find out by poetic sympathy
the thought embodied. The Bible contains all sorts
of literature — histories, prophecies, poems lyric and
dramatic, proverbs, parables, epistles. All are profit
able for doctrine, but none are dogmatic ; all are ex
cellent for religious edification, but disappointing
from the point of view of scholastic theology. Not
even the epistles of Paul can properly be character
ised as dogmatic in the scholastic sense. The four
great epistles are full of doctrine of the most impor
tant character, but it is conveyed in an occasional, ab
rupt, vehement way, by a man engaged in a great
controversy as to the meaning of Christianity, — whose
bosom is agitated by strong emotion, and whose lan
guage is a faithful reflection of his feelings — eloquent,
but inexact ; crowded with deep, grand thoughts, but
with thoughts that struggle for utterance, and are
sometimes only half uttered in broken sentences in
which grammar is shipwrecked on the rock of he
roic passion. The writing is noble, Divine, inspired
in every sense of the term, most profitable for doc
trine ; but how different from the style of dogmatic
theology, with its careful definitions, and minute dis
tinctions, and cold, passionless, scientific diction !

DOCTRIXAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 357

This account of the Bible, if it do not, as some think,
prove that it is neither fitted nor intended to teach
doctrine, may, at least, seem to justify despair as to
the possibility of extracting from it the due doctrinal
use. This, however, is an exaggerated view of the
difficulty of using the Scriptures for doctrinal purposes.
What has been said as to the style and manner of the
sacred writings does not necessarily signify more than
this — that to use these writings for such purposes is
a delicate task, demanding for its right performance
much pains, patience, and wisdom. This is certainly
true, and cannot be sufficiently laid to heart. The
Bible is a precious gift of God to man, containing the
record, the interpretation, and the literary reflection
of the revelation of His grace in history. But it is a
gift which imposes on those who receive it in faith a
heavy responsibility. It docs not tell us in a pre
pared form of words, the didactic significance of its
own contents. It leaves us to ascertain that for our
selves. And it is our duty to address ourselves to the
task with all diligence and earnestness; for what no
bler or more urgent work can we engage in than that
of mastering the thought of so unique a volume ? But
we must enter upon this study with profound humili
ty, mindful how much has been left to ourselves, and
mindful also of the risk we arc exposed to of perform
ing our part not wisely, but foolishly. We may miss
the meaning altogether, and read into the book our
errors instead of taking out of it God's truth. We
may stop short before we have ascertained even the
most essential truths of faith, or we may carry the
work of formulating Scripture teaching to excessive
lengths, to the effect of compromising the dignity of

258 DOC TRINA L SIGNIFICA NCE OF RE VELA TION.

the sacred book, and weakening in men's minds the
reverent esteem in which it ought to be held. The
risk of miscarriage somehow is so great that we do
well to read with the prayer in our heart — " Send
forth Thy light and Thy truth." The actual miscar
riage in past ages has been so vast and so disastrous
that we may not take amiss the rebuke and scorn of
the world. When Shimei cursed David, a fugitive
from his throne, the object of malediction, conscious
of his own shortcoming, said : " Let him curse, for the
Lord hath bidden him." In like manner, when the
apostle of modern culture tells professional theologians
that they are incompetent, bungling interpreters of
Scripture, and that literary men, acquainted with the
best products of genius in all languages, are far fitter
for the delicate task than they, it becomes those to
whom the reproach is addressed to submit to it in si
lence, sensible of the wrong that has been done to the
Divine word by its professional expounders.

In making these observations I do not mean to sug
gest that Mr. Arnold, or any man of like gifts and
spirit, is entitled to sit in judgment on theologians by
profession. While readily acknowledging that divines
have come grievously short in their endeavours to
gather the main sense of Scripture, and that their pro
fession exposes them to certain biassing and blinding
influences, I cannot regard the discursive reading of a
litterateur as the fittest possible preparation for the
interpretation of the sacred writings. If the organ of
insight into the Bible be not theological lore, still less
is it mere literary taste. The true qualification for
the sound understanding of the Divine book is an en
lightened Christian consciousness, a mind believing in

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 259

redemption, and persuasively influenced by that faith.
No man can even begin to understand the Bible who
does not believe in God's grace, and to whose vocab
ulary the very word is a stranger. And our insight
intg the meaning of holy writ will be in proportion to
the strength of our faith in Divine grace, and the
measure in which it has proved in our experience an
emancipating power, bringing liberty to our reason,
our conscience, and our heart. While grace is not be
lieved in, or while it is believed in feebly, there is a
veil on the face which hides the glory of the Lord as
reflected from the sacred page. To understand the
Scriptures is above all things to understand the lov
ing-kindness of the Lord ; and it may be taken for
granted that he who has narrow thoughts of God's
love, and of the purposes of that love towards man
kind, no matter what the extent of his learning may
be, has but a very dim apprehension of the drift of
the Scriptures. And as a mind in which the love of
God has been shed abroad by the Holy Ghost is the
aptcst to discern the scope of the Scriptures as a whole,
so is it best able to determine what amid all that is
taught there are the things of chief concern. It dis
cerns, as if by instinct, what doctrines are most inti
mately connected with the great central truth of the
purpose of grace. The scholastic dogmatist can de
termine by proof-texts that this or that dogma is de
facto taught in Scripture; but the doctrines are all
alike to him — that they are scriptural is the one con
sideration in his eyes. But the Christian mind can
determine with some degree of probability which of
all the doctrines that Biblical theology, by its learned
appliances, can extract from the Bible, are of vital im-

26o DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

portance to faith and life. While accepting all Script
ure as profitable for doctrine, it finds in certain teach
ings of Scripture the food of its life. It can classify
doctrines according to their value, and its principle of
classification is relationship to the central truth of
God's grace. The nearer to that the more vital.

The dogmatic spirit may be jealous of this power
of discernment ascribed to the believing mind, and
may even see in the claim advanced on its behalf an
attempt to set the " inner light " above the written
word. This, however, would be a crass misunder
standing. It is one thing to make the Christian con
sciousness judge of the truth of Scripture teaching,
quite another to make it judge of its comparative
value. Surely it is not presumptuous to claim for
faith the power to discern that the doctrine of the
incarnation is of more importance than a doctrine,
based on texts, concerning the exact constitution of
Christ's person ; or that the fact that Christ died for
our sins is of more moment than any theory of
atonement, claiming for itself Scripture support?
Not only may the Christian mind distinguish be
tween doctrines at once as to certainty, and as to
importance, but it must. The healthy life, both of
the individual believer, and of the Church, depends
on such distinctions being made, and made wisely.
What injury, is it asked, can neglect to classify doc
trines as to their importance, occasion ? The indi
vidual Christian in his indiscriminate zeal for doc
trines, for the specialties of his own creed, as dis
tinct from the catholic verities held by all believers,
may forget to his loss that the kingdom of God is
not meat or drink, or say Calvinism or Arminianism,

DOCTRIXA L SIGN I PICA KCE OF AE VELA TIO.V. 26 1

but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost. The Church, through the same zeal, may be
unnecessarily divided into mutually exclusive sec
tions, as it is this day to the astonishment of the
world and the grief of all Christ-like men. In their
attempts at classification of truths in the order of
importance, Christians, whether acting individually
or collectively may, probably will, err. But that does
not excuse neglect of the task. The work has to
be done, and it has not been done to our hand, and
greater evil may result from leaving it unattemptcd,
than from doing it in a way that falls far short of
perfect wisdom.

To draw up an exhaustive list of the great funda
mental truths which, like planets, revolve around the
Sun of a revelation of grace in the firmament of
Scripture, is certainly a task from which, apart from
the fear of criticism or contradiction, one may very
excusably shrink. Yet there are some truths which,
without pretending to exhaustiveness, we may with
some measure of confidence characterise as of ex
ceptional importance. To such belong the doctrine
of God as manifested in the revelation of grace, the
doctrine which unfolds the nature of the gift of
grace, and the doctrine concerning man as God's
grace finds him and as that grace exhibits him after
it has wrought its full effect upon him. As regards
the first, the Church in all ages has confessed that
God is manifested in the economy of grace as a Trin
ity in Unity. This truth, as was to be expected,
does not come clearly to light till the epoch of ful
filment. It is from the New Testament that we learn
concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
12*

262 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

In the unfolding of the doctrine a place of supreme
importance belongs to the great event of the Incar
nation, itself a truth of cardinal importance, as ex
hibiting Divine grace in action up to the full measure
of gracious possibility. No man knew the Father
till the Son came and revealed Him, so the Gnostics
read the remarkable text in Matt. xi. 27. It is a
true saying, though not in the sense they put on it,
which was that the God of the Old Testament was
an altogether different God from Him whom Jesus
made known. The God of the Old Testament is, as
we have seen, a God of grace. Nevertheless, speak
ing comparatively, no man knew the Father till Jesus
declared Him. When Jesus came the Fatherhood of
God became once for all a fundamental truth of the
ology, not merely in virtue of His teaching that truth,
though that fact exercised a signal influence in giv
ing currency to the doctrine, but still more by His
self-manifestation as the Son of God. He offered
Himself to the world as a Divine being who had
come to earth to seek the lost. Yet He represented
Himself as standing in the relation of Son to God as
Father. Hence believers in Him learnt to distin
guish in God, Father and Son, and to think of the
Divine Being as no abstract unity, but as involving
plurality. The Son coming in the flesh became the
Exegetc of God both as to His nature and as to His
mind, — in the one respect, in so far as He made
known the existence of relationship in God ; in the
other, in so far as He dwelt among men, Himself a
genuine man, " the Son of Man " full of grace, and
showed to them that love was the very centre of
God's moral being.

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 263

But the revelation of Paternity through Sonship
does not exhaust the knowledge of God communi
cated to men by Christ. For He spake to His dis
ciples of a Spirit of truth and purity, Source of il
lumination and holiness, who should be with them
after He had Himself left the world. Of this Spirit
He spake as another, distinct from His Father and
from Himself, yet standing in most intimate rela
tions to both ; proceeding from the Father, and in
the experience of believers taking the place of Him
self, His alter ego* It is true this doctrine of the
Spirit occurs chiefly in the representation of Christ's
teaching contained in the fourth gospel, which to
many in these days is an utterly untrustworthy
source of information as to the words actually spoken
by our Lord, or at the very least a highly-coloured
medium ; though, strange to say, Mr. Arnold, for
certain reasons, prefers it to the synoptical gospels.
But if we are driven from John we can take refuge
in Paul. For Paul's acknowledged Epistles contain
the same doctrine of God as that which we gather
from the four gospels. Paul knows of the grace of
the Incarnation, and speaks of it in terms at once
explicit and pathetic. f He also knows of a Divine
Spirit conceived of not merely as transcendent,
source of miraculous charisms, but as immanent,
dwelling in the Church and in the individual be
liever as a source of ethical influence, promoting
the illumination and sanctification of the body of
Christ. This Spirit he calls now the Spirit of God,
anon the Spirit of Christ, yea, he sometimes identifies

* John xiv. 16. f 2 Cor. viii. 9.

264 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

the immanent Spirit with Christ, saying, the Lord is
the Spirit* a view exactly coinciding with that sug
gested in the fourth gospel, where Jesus in one part
of His discourse says : " I will pray the Father and
He will give you another Comforter, even the Spirit
of truth "; and a little further on : "I will not leave
you orphans, I will come to you,"f implying that the
other Comforter as a fact of experience will be Christ
Himself spiritually present. Are we to look on this
doctrine of Paul's concerning Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, and especially concerning the immanent Spirit,
as an invention of Paul, the product of his fertile
brain working on the original datum that Jesus was
the Christ crucified for sin, accepted by him at his
conversion ? How much more probable that in
these letters of his we have a trustworthy reflection
of the faith current in the Church some twenty years
after the crucifixion, and current because it in turn
was a trustworthy reflection of the apostolic tradition
concerning the teaching of Christ. That the doc
trines of the Incarnation and of the Holy Spirit are
not by any means so prominent in the synoptical
representation, as in that of the fourth gospel, need
be no reason for doubt as to the historicity of the
latter. Even inspired men know only in part, and
one may know more than another, and a later writer
is likely to know more than an earlier as time and
events develop the significances of words spoken by
Him to whom all bear witness; and therefore it
is very credible that the most advanced account of

* 2 Cor. iii. 17. See also ver. 18,
\ John xiv. 16, 18.

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 265

our Lord's doctrine is not an advance beyond His
words, but towards them and towards a more perfect
comprehension of their meaning,— a development not
beyond, but up to the stature of the great Master.
But suppose it were otherwise, and the doctrine of
Paul and of the author of the fourth gospel concerning
God were developments beyond the letter of Christ's
utterances, due to the action of their minds on the
data of His gospel, what would the position amount
to? Simply to this: that men \vho believed the
gospel of God's grace found themselves compelled
to think of God as a Trinity; that is to say, that
the doctrine of the Trinity, far from being the idle
speculation that some account it, is simply the form
under which all must think of God who sincerely
believe in a Revelation of Grace. Apart from such
faith that doctrine may appear a mere unintelligible
mystery ; to those who believe it may still appear
mysterious, but it will be something more, — darkness
produced by excessive light, grace dazzling by its
brightness.

Of the nature of the gift of grace, of " the things
that are freely given to us of God,"* the Scriptures
contain manifold intimations. Hebrew prophecy
shows us the forms under which the suininnm bonum
presented itself to view in the era of preparation and
hope. The New Testament makes us acquainted
with the aspects under which the same thing was
presented to faith by our Lord and the apostles and
others, authors of New Testament writings. Four
leading types of doctrine on this subject may be

* I Cor. ill. 12. Tn inrf> rni* ftfoi< %aptnflH>T(i rjfilv.

266 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

distinguished. The gift of grace is exhibited as
the Kingdom of God, as the Righteousness of God,
as unrestricted Fellowship with God, and as Eternal
Life. The first is the keynote or watchword of our
Lord's teaching in the synoptical representation, the
second is the great theme of Paul's teaching, the
third is the leading thought of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and the fourth takes the place of the first
in the Johannine account of our Lord's doctrine. It
would be an interesting and instructive study which
proposed for its aim to develop the significance of
each of these respective view-points and their mutual
relations. That they are distinct is evident at a
glance. The peculiarity of the first is that it exhibits
the summum bonum as a social thing. The gift of
grace, whatever it may be, is not given to men as
isolated individuals, but as citizens of a sacred
commonwealth. This doctrine is thoroughly con
genial to a revelation of grace, for it implies that
men cannot be blessed in solitude, but only in and
through brotherhood, as sons of God and members
of one Divine family. We are therefore not surprised
to find that all that Jesus taught concerning the
kingdom, bore on its face that the kingdom of God
is a kingdom of grace. He said that the kingdom
was for the humble, the childlike, the poor, the
publicans and sinners, for all who only repented and
believed. How could he say more emphatically that
the kingdom was a kingdom of grace, a society over
which God ruled as a gracious Father, and whose
members, whatever their previous characters may
have been, were all dear to Him as sons?

Paul's view of the gift of grace is thoroughly distinc-

DOCTRINA L SIGN I PICA NCE OF RE VELA TION. 26/

tive. Jesus had said : " Seek ye the kingdom of God
and His righteousness." The two things named were
the highest goods of life in the esteem of all devout
Israelites. They desired the kingdom, and they
sought after righteousness. Paul sought after both,
and he speaks of both in his writings ; but whereas
Jesus, also speaking of both, yet spake chiefly of the
kingdom, Paul, on the other hand, spake chiefly of
the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God
is the great theme of his principal epistles. It is a
striking form of words, and docs not mean what an
inexperienced reader would almost certainly suppose.
By the righteousness of God, Paul means not the
righteousness which conforms to the Divine standard,
or which God demands, but the righteousness which
God gives. It is a synonym for God's free grace, be
stowing on men forgiveness, and treating them as
righteous irrespective of sin. It is closely connected
in Paul's system of thought with the death of Christ.
That death Paul regarded as an atonement for sin,
the death of the just for the unjust, of the sinless for
the sinful ; therefore, as he tells us in one of his epis
tles, it was a standing part of the gospel which he
preached in ever}' place, that Christ died for our sins.
His doctrine concerning man's relation to God was
that, because of Christ's death, the believing man is
in God's sight as one who never sinned : righteous, a
son, accepted in the Beloved. A believing man so
treated by God in His grace, is a man in possession
of the righteousness of God. This doctrine appears
at first not only distinct from that of Christ, but for
eign and uncongenial. Yet there is more affinity be
tween it and the doctrine of the Master than appears

268 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

on the surface. That God pardons men for Christ's
sake is a doctrine identical with that which Jesus
Himself taught when He said, " This is My blood of
the New Testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins."* That pardon and acceptance for
Christ's sake should be called the righteousness of
God, may seem an artificial mode of speaking, but
that is a question of words; the thing so named is
acceptable and in harmony with the teaching of
Christ. At another point the Pauline doctrine seems
to recede from that of Christ, in this respect, viz.,
that in Paul's system the sumnium bonum seems to be
an affair of the individual ; while in Christ's teaching,
as we saw, it is a social thing. But here, also, the
two systems approach each other more closely than
is apparent on the surface. For in Paul's view the
believer does not obtain the blessing of righteousness
in a state of isolation, but as a member of a spiritual
organism of which Christ is the head, and Christians
the body. This solidarity of believing men with one
another and with Christ is the basis of Paul's doctrine
of objective or <4 imputed " righteousness, and that
which redeems it from the charge of artificiality, or
the still more serious charge of questionable morality.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the supreme boon
of Divine grace appears as unrestricted absolutely free
communion with God. It is set forth as the very
mark or distinctive characteristic of the era of the
better hope, that under it we can draw nigh to God,f
with true heart, in full assurance of faith.J Christian
ity is the religion of access, as distinct from the Levi-

* Matt. xxvi. 26. f Heb. vii. 19. \ Heb. x. 21.

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 269

tical religion, which was one of distant relationship :
God's honour carefully guarded ; man standing afar
off worshipping in awe. There is now no veil within
which none may enter except the priests, no second
veil beyond which none may penetrate save the high
priest, and he only once a year, and not without care
ful precautions against the consequences of an ap
proach not according to rule. The veils are rent
asunder, and the distinction between a holy place and
an inaccessible most holy place is annulled. Chris
tians may come into the very presence of God, and
have the freedom of all the chambers of the heavenly
temple, their Father's house on high. Thither Christ
has entered as the great High Priest of humanity, but
entered in an entirely new capacity ; not as mere re
presentative or substitute, as in the case of the Aaronic
high priest, but as forerunner* Aaron went into the
most holy place in the people's stead, going into a
place where they might not follow him. Jesus, our
Priest after the honourable order of Melchisedec, en
ters the heavenly most holy place as our pioneer, to
prepare a place for us as He said to His disciples.
This forcrunncrship of Christ is the originality of
Christianity as compared with the Levitical religion,
and it is its glory. It is the conclusive proof of its
being the perfect and therefore the eternal religion.
A religion which kept men standing at a distance

* Heh. vi. 20, unhappily translated in the English version
"whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus"; as if the
idea of forerunner were one familiar to the Hebrews, whereas it
was a novelty, and as such is introduced here. The passage
should be rendered — " Whither us forerunner is for us entered
Jesus."

2/0 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

awe-stricken, and hedged God about with mystery to
guard His majesty from violation, could not be the
final form of the relation between God and man. The
existence of the veil was an infallible sign of a rude
religion, fit only for the childhood of humanity, and
but a shadow of good things to come. Such a reli
gion is doomed to be outgrown, antiquated, and su
perseded. But a religion which abolishes all envious
restrictions, and brings man into the most intimate
fellowship with God, can never be replaced by a better.
It is the best possible, and therefore ought to be per
ennial ; the perfect, and therefore the final form of
man's relation to God. Accordingly, this epistle, in
the most emphatic manner, claims for Christianity the
honour of being the eternal religion in contrast to the
Levitical religion, whose transiency is asserted with
equal emphasis. That Christianity is the eternal reli
gion is, indeed, the chief thought of the epistle re
garded from the apologetic point of view, as the con
ception of the essence of religion as unrestricted access
to God is the leading dogmatic thought.

The great theme of John's gospel, finally, is eternal
life. This life, as John represents it, is not a future
good to be attained after death. It is the true life of
man possessed now by every one who knows the true
God and Jesus Christ His Son. It is a life independ
ent of time and chance, consisting in blessed fellow
ship with God through faith and love. But just be
cause the author of the fourth gospel believes in this
eternal life, he also believes in the life everlasting.
Over one who possesses eternal life death can have
no power ; even his body is proof against the law of
corruption. All who love God are like God Himself,

DOCTRINA L SIGN I PICA NCE OF RE VELA TION. 2 7 1

everlasting. The world passeth away; but he who
doeth the will of God abideth for ever. Similar is the
doctrine taught by Paul, and, indeed, throughout the
New Testament. The conception of eternal life is, in
no case, purely cscliatological. That life is viewed as
immanent in the Christian from the moment he be
comes a believer. But its nature is conceived to be
such that immortality is involved as a corollary.
Hence, just because the gospel has brought to light
this true life of faith and fellowship with God the
fountain of life, it has also brought to light immor
tality.

The Bible doctrine concerning man is at once hum
bling and inspiring. The grace of God is represented
as finding men in a state of serious moral corruption
and consequent unblessed ness. That this should be
so is implied in the very fact of a revelation of grace.
They that be whole need not a physician ; if, there
fore, God has undertaken in behalf of mankind the
healer's task, it may be inferred that the patient la
bours under a grave malady. A variety of significant
and pathetic words and phrases are employed to de
scribe man's condition, some very sombre, others
more hopeful. The objects of God's gracious com
passion are described as sick, lost, blind, asleep, dead,
far-off, without strength, subject to vanity. Such
terms, on the most moderate interpretation, studious
to avoid all theological exaggeration, justify a strong
assertion of human guilt, depravity, and wretchedness.
The contemplation of such a forlorn plight naturally
suggests questions as to its origin. The Bible con
tains important hints on that subject, which cannot
be overlooked by Biblical or dogmatic theology, but

272 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

which are not so essential to the doctrine of faith as
those that describe man's actual condition. The
supremely important fact is that sin is here, not how
it originated. It was the fact of sin that made a
revelation of grace necessary, and it is that fact above
all things which we, the beneficiaries of God's grace;
need to lay to heart. No man can be a true believer
in a revelation of grace who does not lay the fact to
heart ; the same thing cannot be affirmed concerning
one who is perplexed by the problem of the origin of
sin. Even if the Scriptures had contained no intima
tions on that subject, the need for a Divine interpo
sition in man's behalf would have remained the same,
making the same demands on our faith and gratitude.
In proportion as the Bible humbles men by its
picture of his natural condition, it exalts him by the
prospect it holds out before him. The two parts
of its doctrine of man must be looked at together
to be justly appreciated. The Bible takes a sombre
view of the reality of human character because it has
a high ideal of man's nature and destiny. It would
not humble him so low if it did not mean to exalt
him so high. The exaltation abundantly compen
sates for the humiliation. Man, as the recipient of
Divine grace, is the son and heir of God ; all things
are his now and for ever. Being justified by faith, he
has peace with God, and rejoices in the hope of the
glory of God. Not only so, he rejoices also in tribu
lations, because they contribute to the development
of his character, and therefore to the confirmation of
his hope. Not only so, he rejoices above all in God
Himself, as his chief good, the bliss of heaven, the
Comforter amid present afflictions, by His benignant

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION, 273

providence making all things work together for good.
These are great benefits, but they do not exhaust the
privileges of the justified. Christians have the fur
ther honour to be fellow-workers with God in the
grand problem of the transformation of the world
into the kingdom of heaven. They are a chosen
generation, and they have been chosen that they may
show forth the virtues of Him who called them out
of darkness into light, letting their light shine be
fore men so that men, seeing their good works, may
glorify their Father in heaven. They are the salt of
the earth, the light of the world, the leaven in the
dough.

These, then, are among the more essential truths
of the revelation of grace. God manifested as a
Trinity through the Incarnation of Christ, and the
mission of the Comforter. Men found by God lost,
impotent, dead, alienated, — lifted up by His grace into
a region of holiness and blessedness ; forgiven for the
sake of Him who was crucified for sin ; admitted to
intimate fellowship with God, and made partakers
of eternal life; united into a holy commonwealth, in
which they are related to God as sons, to each other
as brethren, exhibiting in their mutual converse the
communion of saints, and, as a spiritual society,
having for their high vocation to bring about the
consummation of the desires which Jesus taught His
disciples to cherish for the advancement of God's
glory, the coming of His kingdom ever more exten
sively, and the doing of His will on earth as it is
done in heaven.

It is a short creed ; yet he who sincerely owns
these truths is a true Christian, accepted of God, a

274 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

member of the kingdom of God, and worthy to have
part in the fellowship of saints ; in the best catholic
sense of the word, an orthodox believer. Hitherto the
fellowship of saints has been broken up and largely
nullified by sectional creeds, in which the doctrine
of faith is mixed up with the theology of the schools.
Perhaps this was inevitable, but it may fairly be ques
tioned if it ever was legitimate, or anything but a
calamity due to human infirmity and sin. In any
case, the present condition of the world and of the
Church forces upon thoughtful men, earnestly con
cerned for the realization of the Divine ideal, the
question whether the past state of things ought to be
perpetuated. The Church is enfeebled by divisions
and controversies which render the communion of
saints little more than a name, and reduces her
spiritual influence to a minimum ; Christianity, in
consequence, seems to have lost its self-propagating
power, and to have become a spent force, destined no
longer to give rise to important developments. Utter
unbelief, originating from scientific, philosophic, or
social causes, judging from all observable symptoms,
seems to be spreading on every side. Can nothing
be done to remedy this state of matters ? Must we
continue as we are, each sect holding fast by its
peculiar dogmas, and all the sects regarding each
other with a suspicious eye, and trust to the mil
lennium for the cure of all present evil ? Or shall
we go to the opposite extreme, and, to accommodate
the sceptical spirit of the age, discard all dogmas and
doctrines alike, and reduce Christianity to the Deistic
Trinity, God, duty, and immortality, as the only
religious certainties ? Both views have their advo-

DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION. 2?$

cates in the religious world, but it is not likely that
deliverance will come from either of these quarters.
The hope of the future seems to lie neither in a
creedless Church nor in a Church clinging supersti-
tiously to all traditional dogmas, but in a Church
which has the will and the wisdom to distinguish
between the essential and the ncn-essential in reli
gious belief, between catholic Christian certainties
and matters of doubtful disputation ; in other words,
between doctrines of faith and theological dogmas.
The emphasis with which this distinction is insisted
on is the index of the value which the Church sets
on faith as distinct from opinion ; and that again
is the measure of spiritual power. A Church which
neglects the distinction, or declines it as illegitimate,
is a Nebuchadnezzar's image, compounded of gold,
silver, brass, iron, and clay, and possessing the
strength only of the weakest part ; or it may be
likened to a child, to whom a penny seems as valu
able as a shilling or a sovereign — a sure mark of im
becility. It is certainly no part of true wisdom to
despise pence, but, on the other hand, it is to be
remembered that there is a penny-wisdom which
imports pound-folly. The tithing of mint, anise, and
cummin may be attended to with such scrupulous
care that justice, mercy, and faith are forgotten.

The distinction between doctrines of faith and
dogmas of theology is one which should come into
play in all departments of the Church's work ; in the
preaching of the word, in the conduct of missions, in
the construction of confessional documents, and still
more in the catechetical instruction of the young.
In these days the question is sometimes asked whether

276 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RE VELA TION.

preaching should be doctrinal or not. Opinion and
practice differ on the point. In the judgment of
some the less doctrine, the less definite religious be
lief, the better the sermon. The taste of others is
for sermons saturated with a theological system and
expressing all truth in terms of the system. Edifi
cation is best promoted by the preacher who avoids
both extremes. Sermons should be doctrinal, but not
theological; the truths of faith should underlie, and
even form the staple of all preaching, but these truths
ought to be set forth in simple, untechnical terms.
Among the wise counsels in the Directory for Public
Worship, prepared by the Westminster Assembly, is
one to the preacher not to trouble the minds of his
hearers with " obscure terms of art."

It is hardly necessary to point out what an impor
tant qualification for success in missionary enterprise
it must be to be able to distinguish between the
essential and the non-essential in belief, in teaching
heathens the elements of the Christian religion.
Above all men a missionary ought not to be a theo
logical pedant. This, however, is a mere common
place, not needing to be insisted on. It is when we
proceed to assert the applicability of the distinction
now in view to the construction of creeds and cate
chisms that we are most likely to encounter gainsay
ing. We are so accustomed to separatism in religion,
or to what may be called the club-theory of church-
fellowship, that it seems to us almost axiomatic that
a creed should embrace all the theological proposi
tions to which we attach importance. Yet nothing is
more certain than that if the visible Church ought to,
exhibit, in the widest sense possible, the fellowship

DOC TA'f\A L SIGN I PICA NCE OF RE VELA TION. 277

of saints, such fulness is neither possible nor desira
ble. The more catholic the communion, the less
comprehensive the creed. If we aim at catholicity
in Church fellowship we must be content with a creed
embracing only the essential truths of faith to which
enlightened Christian fidelity requires us to bear wit
ness. This principle, thoroughly carried out, would
involve considerable retrenchments in all the Re
formed confessions.

Catechisms, being intended for the religious in
struction of the young, ought to contain only the
sincere milk of the word, expressed, as far as possible?
in Scriptural terms. In the catechisms of the seven
teenth century, milk is mixed with strong meat, doc
trine with dogma, Scripture language with the
terminology of the schools. The milk is, that God
gave Christ to be a Redeemer of sinners, and the
Scriptural way of stating the truth would have been
to say, "God so loved the world, that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." But the
catechism offers the child strong meat instead of milk,
by stating the truth in terms of the dogma of elec
tion. Again, the milk is, that Christ exercised the
office of a priest by dying on the cross for our sins ;
the strong meat mixed therewith is the dogma of
satisfaction. The aim of a catechism so constructed
is to make the catechumens not only believers, but
dogmatically orthodox. The result, in a time like
the present, is apt to be recoil from the orthodoxy,
and, along with that, apostasy from the faith.

In making these observations I am not to be under
stood as hinting that immediate attempts at recon-

2;8 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION.

struction of creeds and recasting of catechisms are
either likely or desirable. No one indeed would
desire that such work should be taken in hand till the
scope of the distinction between doctrine and dogma
is fully realized, and the distinction itself, in all its
breadth, frankly accepted. But though the work may
be long deferred, there is no reason why one should
not freely express his thoughts on the subject, and
leave them to work as a leaven in men's minds. In
all probability the Church has many long ages before
it, and one may devoutly dream of the glory that is
to accrue unto God therein as these ages roll on, and
muse on the conditions under which that glory is to
be advanced. Among these, in the judgment of
many earnest men, reconstruction of the Church on
a new, wide basis, must take its place. To this
opinion I humbly subscribe. The Church is now
weak, and among the causes of her weakness are
doubt, division, and dogmatism. To renew her youth,
and make a fresh start in a career of victory, she needs
certainty, concord, and a simplified creed.

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